Slip'n'Slide

[Jazz [G1]]

Day 29, Event Horizon rock room, semi-private.

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Jazz is kicked back in the rock room, chitchatting with Nightbeat, who is also there.

"...so I gotta ask, what's it like, this whole Headmaster business? You guys got like a hive mind thing going on, or what?" Jazz gestures to his own head a bit while he asks.

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OOC: Mentioning of Nightbeat done with player permission.

[Nightbeat]

"Sort of," Nightbeat says, nodding. "We've got a telepathic link we can communicate through, and having him around augments my senses. Muzzle and I are lucky though, we were a lot alike even before we underwent the Headmaster process. We can pretty much finish each others' sentences now. Most of the guys who got binary bonded weren't so lucky. Try to imagine having Blurr in your head all the time. Or Spinister, for that matter."

[Jazz [G1]]

Jazz nods as Nightbeat explains, and chuckles a bit. "Man, it's tricky enough to talk to Blurr occasionally - having him talking in my head would drive me...well, haywire." The saboteur laughs a bit. "Though I figure it'd be something you get used to."

[Slider]

Fire was the last thing that Slider saw. It followed in the wake of the purple light that had sheared the Tallien into two neat halves. If he had the presence of mind at the time, Slider could have thought that the it was caused not by the the beam, but by hundreds of energon nodes across the ship going critical at once. Therein lay the the problem. There was no time.

Dozens of communication frequencies peppered his receiver. Each one was an Autobot that was about to scream for help. But those screams never came. The oncoming fire silenced each one with a sizzling pop before any words could be uttered. Then Slider saw it in all of it’s glory, a hungry and inescapable beast.

It consumed the other half of the ship first in the kind of slow motion only an over-clocked, panicked processor could provide. Slider saw his his shipmates engulfed and melt, becoming one with their ship as he noticed the fire coiling around the edges of his field of vision as well. It would have been right and proper if Slider faced the fire with grim defiance. But he was scared and if it would be the last thing he ever did, then Slider refused to watch himself melt. He shut his eyes with a nanosecond’s worth of more sizzling pops as his only company.

Then there was nothing except the warning messages that his intakes were overheating. He felt almost weightless as he pitched forward. He expected to be blown out into the void as a flaming wreck. It came as a real shock to him when the actually hit something solid when he landed. Daring to open one optic, Slider found himself lying in a patch of what looked like strewn rubble.

“What...?” was all he could manage as he lifted one metallic rock to eye level.

He opened his other eye, letting his gaze follow the rock to his blackened and scored finger guard. Slider struggled to his feet and looked the rest of his body frame over. Many of his hard edges still glowed from the fire’s heat, but otherwise he was unharmed. His mouth plate raised slightly in a smirk before some small and slightly hysterical laughter managed to breach his vocalizer.

“What do you know? I lived...”

[Nightbeat]

"Honestly, I can barely imagine not having Muzzle around anymore, even if he is an annoying little exhaust port," says the robot who was just talking about how similar he is to his Nebulan partner. "Besides feeling like I was blind and deaf . . . I dunno, it's just kind of nice to have a friend who's always there. Now, Targetmasters, they've got it easy. I could tell you horror stories about being a Headmaster. This one time-"

And then there were three robots in the room, instead of two. The detective pats his knees as he rises from his chair. "We got a live one," he comments, moving to stand over Slider.

"My name is Nightbeat. The other guy is Jazz. You're aboard the Event Horizon, which is an Autobot space cruiser. You've just been plucked from your home reality for reasons no-one really understands, but that seem to have something to do with these rocks. There are also Decepticons here, and some other 'bots that are functionally equivalent to Autobots and Decepticons.

Who're you?" he finishes, looking for an Autobrand.

[Jazz [G1]]

Jazz swings his feet around and strolls over to stand beside Nightbeat. "My buddy here's a little dry about it, but that's the gist of it.

The saboteur notes the heated edges, scorching, and general damage with a frown. "You might be alive, but you alright, man? Looks like you fell right out of a smeltin' pit."

[Slider]

The mentioned Autobrand glowed faintly in the center of Slider's chest, relatively untouched. I contrast his optics dimmed in concentration as he searched Nightbeat's form for one as well. He had no idea why another soldier would feed him a load of slag like that, but at least he answered the question.

"My name is Slider. I..."

The words caught there as the second figure strolled into view. Jazz, one of the few Autobots to survive Kaon was standing right in front of him. Jazz had not only kept his head, he'd helped Slider get out of that awful, awful place... It was ALL the young 'bot could could do not to gush like a super-fan. Instead Slider fell back on years of military training and went ramrod strait, his posture topped off with a stiff salute. All doubt was washed away with the senior officer's assertion of the facts.

"... If you say so sir, then I believe you..."

Another thought and an answer to Jazz' occurred at the same time. "The Tallien, the ship I was assigned to during the evac, got hit by a blast from Trypticon Station. The Tallien was ripped apart before I ended up here. Were there any other survivors?"

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OOC: Hitting my work week now. Posting might be sparse until Monday.

[Nightbeat]

Nightbeat has an Autobot symbol on the right side of his chest. It should be clearly visible as he reaches a hand down to help Slider up. "Trust me, it's true. Wait'll you meet the Maximals." Or he could just take his head off, but he's using it right now.

The detective frowns at Slider's question. "I don't know anything about a Tallien. And you said Trypticon Station? Not just Trypticon?"

[Jazz [G1]]

Jazz looks a bit confused, then sheepish. He doesn't hold rank here like he did back home, but looks like he did where-ever this 'bot comes from. "Ah, I'm not 'sir' around here - just Jazz."

A glance over at Nightbeat, then back at Slider. "Can't say I've heard of that ship either, or a Trypticon Station." Heck, Jazz got pulled before Trypticon showed up in his own universe. He's heard about him from some of the others here, though.

[Slider]

All Slider managed to say was, "Oh," when the two informed him of his survival status. It would have been closer to his thought process to say, 'Oh, so I'm the only survivor out all the Autobots on the ship." However, their words about Trypticon gave Slider a topic he was much more comfortable with.

"Trypticon Station, in my reality at least, is where Megatron found and mastered something called dark energon. After he established an energy bridge to the station, he began to produce more of it. Eventually he corrupted Cybertron's core with it."

"That's actually part of the reason I'm here, I guess. After Optimus shut down the core, to save it, he ordered a planetary evacuation. I was on one of the ships when Megatron used the station to start shooting us out of the sky."

[Nightbeat]

"Dark energon? That's a new one. Don't think I've seen it in the database. You heard of that, Jazz?" he asks, turning toward the other Porsche.

Maybe he's from Override's reality. They're supposed to have some kind of crazy energon. If not, he could be from a new one altogether.

[Jazz [G1]]

Jazz shakes his head, then rubs his chin. "No, never heard of that stuff either. And if it ain't in the database, then we may have a new reality representative on our hands here," Jazz answers.

He sighs, then smiles a bit as he puts a hand out, offering a handshake to the new Autobot. "Slider was it? Welcome."

[Slider]

The act was simple enough, a smile and a handshake, but the tension in Slider's frame relaxed a bit as he accepted Jazz' hand.

"Thank you s... Uh... Jazz," Slider's mouth plate raising in a sheepish grin as he caught his mistake.

"So what happens now? Who's the C.O. here?" Slider asked quickly as he took in the surrounding room and noticed the distressing absence of something important, "And, if you don't mind my asking, where are the access nodes near the computer terminals?"

[Nightbeat]

"I was thinking the same thing. That'd make, what, 13 realities we've got people from?" Nightbeat wonders aloud.

"C.O. is Emirate Xaaron, second in command is Rodimus Prime." The detective's brow furrows. "Access nodes? If you mean like an interface port, there's ways you can jack directly into the computer system if you prefer that using your hands. Not that we're letting you on the computer until you've cleared security. Nothing personal, just standard procedure."

[Jazz [G1]]

Jazz gives Slider a grin - it may be rather familiar to the spotter if the Jazz he knows is as jovial. "No problem."

Then he hooks a thumb at Nightbeat. "Blue'n'yellow here nailed it."