Nightbeat
Minor
Lord High Instructor, Duke of Snack
Cybertron's Greatest Detective
Posts: 373
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Post by Nightbeat on May 22, 2007 22:36:43 GMT -5
The silence of the beach is broken by the kind of groan that usually signifies that someone is dying. Or hungover. In Nightbeat's case, he isn't especially sure which option would have been better. His head ached like he'd gone ten rounds with that monstrous merging of Ratchet and Megatron.
The last definite memory he has was preparing to enter the Earth's atmosphere so that Optimus Prime could surrender to Scorponok. It was not a choice that sat well with him, but he woud follow orders. This whole business with Unicron confused him anyway, and he'd seen the Matrix creature first hand.
Finally, he musters the strength to get to his feet and look around. He's standing on a beach, but it isn't like anything he's encountered before. Granted, his travels generally take him to cities and not natural enviornments, but he's also spent a time or two running down leads in resort communities.
Ocean behind him, buildings off in the distance, and sand and trees in the immediate. No big signs of technology, but that would take closer investigation to fully determine.
"Siren!" he calls out. "Hosehead! Kup! Longtooth! Grimlock, even! Anybody!"
Just because he prefers to work alone doesn't mean he doesn't feel concern for his fellow Autobots. If they've been stranded too, they'll need to pull together.
He can open a communications channel, but in an unknwon environment, it risk interception by hostile forces. Then again, if they're supposed to be surrendering, then there's little point in trying to avoid contact with anyone.
//This is Nightbeat to any available Autobots. I've found myself in an unknown location, some kind of beach. Anyone else out there?//
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Omega Supreme
Minor
Shorter and Coloured Funny but Still Angry as the Pit
Posts: 456
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Post by Omega Supreme on May 23, 2007 11:55:06 GMT -5
It is night-time, just for the record. Not a dark and stormy night, mind you, but a rather pleasant, starry night. There is also a vast iceberg stranded out in the midrange shallows of the water. It looks distinctly out of place. The beach is warm, maybe even tropical. How could an iceberg arrive here, unmelted? Something very, very large is moving under the water, sending waves crashing into the beach. Then, Omega Supreme surfaces, his head breaking the water like a newborn volcano just cresting above the waves. As he treads up the sandy undersea slope, the rest of him appears, water rolling off his frame and splashing down into froth. A few more steps, that would surely topple any sand-castles that haven’t been eroded by the waves, and he stands on dry sand. Omega Supreme shakes himself, sending salty sea-spray flying, and once he is satisfied with his dryness index, he cranes his head about in the dark, surveying the beach. Then he hears a voice in the dark. "Siren!" he calls out. "Hosehead! Kup! Longtooth! Grimlock, even! Anybody!"His fuel levels are low. However, he hopes that he would be an even match for the best of most alien worlds. Should he find himself outmatched, he does have barely enough fuel for a launch, where he could retreat to the solace and safety of space. He turns on his running lights, hoping to find the source of the voice. Casting his gaze about the beach with a bit more illumination at his disposal, Omega Supreme notes a blue Autobot. He cannot say that he recognizes the fellow, but then he’s been more detached from this crop of new Autobots than he was from the older ranks, and he was never that close to the older ranks! Then, there is a radioed call. //This is Nightbeat to any available Autobots. I've found myself in an unknown location, some kind of beach. Anyone else out there?//Omega Supreme peers down at the blue Autobot, head tilted to one side, and inquires, “Nightbeat?” The small time gap between the verbalisation and the radio call makes it a reasonable assumption. He’s not worried about giving away his position by speaking verbally. He’s already turned on his running lights. Merely being who is usually gives away his position, anyway. OOC: Teehee! Nightbeat on a beach reminds me of this comic cover: seibertron.com/images/comic/03/230.jpg
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Nightbeat
Minor
Lord High Instructor, Duke of Snack
Cybertron's Greatest Detective
Posts: 373
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Post by Nightbeat on May 23, 2007 19:52:25 GMT -5
Nightbeat is not, typically, a 'bot of many words. At least no so long as he's not running an inner monologue. But that's okay, because long inner monologue's are part and parcel of being a detective.
Besides, when you've just spotted a giant Autobot, words other than "Whoah," aren't really necessary.
Omega Supreme. He'd never personally met the giant--what with an Underbase powered Starscream having deactivated the bulk of Optimus Prime's original crew and later additions--but had seen some of his parts strewn about the medical bay and later placed into cold storage. So what was he doing here?
A trap? Possibly, but unlikely. The Decepticon forces on Cybertron were too disorganized, lacking in central leadership now that Thunderwing was dead. And the forces on Earth were--by all reports--too busy with infighting and scrambling for control to orchestrate something like this.
"Whoah, Big Fellah," he says, plastering a grin on his face. "Who woke you up?"
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Omega Supreme
Minor
Shorter and Coloured Funny but Still Angry as the Pit
Posts: 456
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Post by Omega Supreme on May 23, 2007 21:48:40 GMT -5
Omega Supreme is just going to assume that this blue Autobot is Nightbeat, since he did not answer in a contradictory fashion.
Now, the thing about comic Omega Supreme is that he tended to do these long, pompous speeches. The way this particular Omega Supreme speaks is going to sound very strange to Nightbeat, in comparison.
He pauses, totally thrown by Nightbeat's question. Omega Supreme doesn't actually remember going into shutdown. He's fairly sure that he must have been stunned and dumped on this planet. He's still not sure who did it, but he's sure that if Perceptor had any great information on the subject, he would have shared it by using way too many large words. But... it's just a weird, weird question. Does Nightbeat want to know what Omega Supreme's last fuel intake was like, too?
He shrugs and says, "Defragmentation completion." Y'know, the normal way to wake up, although a what, not a who.
On the radio, he responds to Perceptor with, //Rodger.//
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Nightbeat
Minor
Lord High Instructor, Duke of Snack
Cybertron's Greatest Detective
Posts: 373
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Post by Nightbeat on May 23, 2007 22:07:35 GMT -5
Well, that was an unexpected response. Short on words and way too literal. Not at all what he'd expect from Omega Supreme. Especially not after the time he'd watched footage from Omega's initial outing against the Decepticons.
Quite the popular piece of entertainment in the Ark's rec room.
Then again, when the person you were talking too was several times your size, outmassed you by a considerable amount, and had nearly killed Megatron with a handful of moves, questioning his choice of speach patterns wasn't necessarily the smartest move.
Still, he files that particular piece of information away for further consideration.
Instead, he tries for a different question. "What happened? Where's Prime and the others? Where's the Ark?"
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Omega Supreme
Minor
Shorter and Coloured Funny but Still Angry as the Pit
Posts: 456
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Post by Omega Supreme on May 24, 2007 8:06:05 GMT -5
Omega Supreme is a fairly simple fellow. One might even call him gullible. However, he really feels that he cannot be blamed for being utterly baffled by this Nightbeat fellow. Earlier, he called out names that Omega Supreme didn't recognise, he then asked a rather confusing question out of nowhere, and now... Omega Supreme doesn't even know what an 'Ark' is. He could assume that Optimus Prime is back on Cybertron, but maybe whatever got him, Perceptor, and this Nightbeat, got Optimus Prime, too. Or maybe they want back to having Rodimus when he wasn't looking. Omega Supreme has never followed politics too closely.
He spends a while staring at Nightbeat. One can almost hear his processors ticking over as he tries to make sense of the inquiry. Tick, tick, tick - crack!
No, Omega Supreme isn't getting this. Rubbing the back of his helmet with a claw, he merely tries to answer as best he can, "Answers: unknown."
Sometimes, the best he can do just isn't very helpful.
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Nightbeat
Minor
Lord High Instructor, Duke of Snack
Cybertron's Greatest Detective
Posts: 373
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Post by Nightbeat on May 24, 2007 20:48:29 GMT -5
"Huh," Nightbeat says, not really having a reply, but feeling that at least some sort of noise was necessary.
As it was, his questions didn't seem to be getting him anywhere. But a good detective, particularly one as stubborn as he is, never gives up. Oh, sure, he might go and get stinking drunk at some point, but that wasn't giving up. That was just... waiting for inspirtation.
"What's the last thing you remember, Omega? Do you remember Starscream and the Underbase?" Maybe not the best question--near terminal deactivation could do things to even the most stable of mechanoids, and he was beginning to think that was what had happened here.
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Omega Supreme
Minor
Shorter and Coloured Funny but Still Angry as the Pit
Posts: 456
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Post by Omega Supreme on May 24, 2007 23:09:49 GMT -5
Omega Supreme is a singularly disadvantaged mechanism in several respects, but one of the more tragic is that it's a logistical nightmare for him to even contemplate getting drunk. Getting him charged is hard enough. Over-charged is a nigh-impossible. A moment of pity for Omega Supreme, please, who cannot contemplate the solace in the bottom of a cube of energon, unless he'd like to drain the energy output of a medium country.
Oh, sure, Mixmaster might have managed it.
But insofar as Omega Supreme doesn't talk much, he especially doesn't talk about those rumours.
Back on track, he ponders Nightbeat's questions. They're as baffling as ever. Omega Supreme says, "Starscream: lost in space. Underbase: unknown."
Given that he's just standing here, he takes a few steps away from Nightbeat, finds a nice, flat patch of beach, and settles down into base mode.
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Nightbeat
Minor
Lord High Instructor, Duke of Snack
Cybertron's Greatest Detective
Posts: 373
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Post by Nightbeat on May 25, 2007 0:11:44 GMT -5
If he were questioning a suspect, at this point Nightbeat would have probably gone into threats and potentially holding the person off the edge of a building.
...He'd have to find a really big building. And possibly a crane.
Fortunately, his communication with Xaaron is clearing some of that up. It doesn't actually make any more sense, but at least it's an explanation. The whole Time Wars thing made his head hurt anyway.
"Okay, big guy," he says, "the only thing we've got going for us here is that we're both Autobots. Doesn't sound like we're from the same place... But that's gotta count for something."
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Omega Supreme
Minor
Shorter and Coloured Funny but Still Angry as the Pit
Posts: 456
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Post by Omega Supreme on May 25, 2007 8:38:25 GMT -5
Y'know, there's a song called, "It's Going to Take a Crane". Omega Supreme, however, scares the wits out of one particular crane, who, even now, is cowering in a garage elsewhere on this planet, unbeknownst to the Guardian, and that crane has a rather lot of wits to scare out.
One of Omega Supreme's functions is communications, so he does indeed listen along on Autobot broadband. He has no idea who this Emirate Xaaron fellow is, but he seems to know this Nightbeat, whom Omega Supreme also doesn't know. However, he mentioned Perceptor, and Omega Supreme's been talking to Perceptor... a Perceptor?
The talk of alternate realities gives Omega Supreme a killer migraine. That means there are alternate Constructicons, too, which makes hunting down and terminating all the Constructicons that much harder. Of course, he'd have alternate-hims to help... alternate-hims who should know about some 'Underbase' thingy.
The turret of the tank swivels and points its barrel down at Nightbeat's feet, as if glaring. Personality of a rock? (There is the nagging thought that Scavenger could have identified what kind of rock.) He'd like to see how Nightbeat felt after the robo-smasher had its way with his mind. See if Omega Supreme invites Nightbeat in out of the... not cold. The warm, pleasant beach. At least, there is no sand inside Omega Supreme.
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Nightbeat
Minor
Lord High Instructor, Duke of Snack
Cybertron's Greatest Detective
Posts: 373
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Post by Nightbeat on May 26, 2007 0:39:38 GMT -5
Note to self, Nightbeat thinks, watch your mouth around the giant, scary Autobot.
His grin is forced, and somewhat cheesey, but it also manages to be a bit appologetic. "Er, sorry about that, big guy. Lettin' my mouth do my thinkin' for me again."
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Omega Supreme
Minor
Shorter and Coloured Funny but Still Angry as the Pit
Posts: 456
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Post by Omega Supreme on May 26, 2007 14:20:58 GMT -5
Apologies generally don't do much for Omega Supreme, especially not ones delivered with such cheesy smiles as that. So it is not a vestige of compassion or mercy that leads him to swivel the tank turret away, open the hatch on the side of the rocket, and pop down the gangplank. It's mainly just the thought that it's harder for something to sneak up on Nightbeat and be a nuisance if Nightbeat is safely inside the defense base. Bereft of any city or other post to defend, he may as well see to his fellow Autobots.
This does call into question the matter of scale, as Omega Supreme is only a little bit bigger than Devastator, but a squad of Autobots can fit inside his rocket. Maybe he just has more space on the inside than the outside, like the TARDIS.
So if Nightbeat wants, he can wait out the night inside Omega Supreme. If not, there's the beach, the occasional lonely beach ball still tumbling over the sand.
OOC: Since the other Autobots are time-skipping, we can time skip, too. Jump to pre-dawn/dawnish time okay?
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Nightbeat
Minor
Lord High Instructor, Duke of Snack
Cybertron's Greatest Detective
Posts: 373
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Post by Nightbeat on May 26, 2007 21:24:02 GMT -5
Some things, Nightbeat has learned not to question. When you've seen monsters come out of the scared lifeforce of your people, your suspension of disbelief tends to be thrown a bit out of whack.
And that's not even getting in to questioning how the brain patterns of a Transformer could be made to fit on a single human floppy disk.
"Thanks, Omega," he says as he walks up the gangplank. Hey, it beat spending the night outside.
(OOC: Timeskip is good with me.))
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Omega Supreme
Minor
Shorter and Coloured Funny but Still Angry as the Pit
Posts: 456
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Post by Omega Supreme on May 26, 2007 22:22:02 GMT -5
Omega Supreme retracts the gangplank and closes up the door after Nightbeat enters. He's not very exciting company, but if Nightbeat wants an undisturbed recharge cycle, he won't be disappointed.
Dawn rises over the beach, the tattered umbrellas casting long shadows, but no shadows so long as the one cast by the rocket base. Omega Supreme waits to see what Nightbeat will do as golden light spills in through his windows.
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Nightbeat
Minor
Lord High Instructor, Duke of Snack
Cybertron's Greatest Detective
Posts: 373
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Post by Nightbeat on May 27, 2007 0:40:29 GMT -5
Dawn brings Nightbeat to a higher level of activity, systems shut down for the duration of the night coming back on-line.
For a moment, he's confused, not knowing where he is. Then reality settles back in and he has to resist the urge to groan.
"Probably gonna have company before too much longer," he says aloud.
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