Arrival: Autobot Beach Bum

[Bluestreak]

Bluestreak is having a conversation with a bird. This isn't unusual -- Bluestreak enjoys having something with a working audial receptor around to talk to. Another mech or one of the Autobot's human friends around to talk to is always nice, but in a pinch a sample of the local fauna will suffice. Heck, he was known to have quite interesting conversation with trees if nothing better presented itself.

"Heh, kinda funny how things can be flipped around on you in a nanoclick, isn't it?" he inquires of the vibrant-nearly-to-the-point-of-neon green avian perched on his doorwing as he sits cross-legged on the beach, watching the breakers roll in to hiss and sigh across the sand. "I mean, one second I'm helping Kup put up that roadblock -- wonder why, nothing looked wrong with the road to me, but I'm not gonna fight with Kup over that -- and then Hot Rod goes crashing through and knocks me over... then I wake up here. Hee, kinda like 'Twilight Zone,' though it's been awhile since I saw that show. Maybe when Jazz gets back from the moonbase and I get back from... wherever I am, we can have another movie night. Though I guess I'd better figure out where 'here' is first, huh?"

The bird regards Bluestreak with glassy orange eyes, decides he's neither foe nor interesting company, and flies away in a whirr of wings.

"I guess that's a yes," he decides, and he activates his comm. //Hello? Kup? Springer? Wheeljack? Ultra Magnus? Anyone? Uh... I'm on a beach somewhere... and it's a nice place and all, but I'd really like to get back to Autobot City, and my GPS doesn't seem to be working. Does anyone know where I am? I sure hope this isn't another prank, 'cause I know Kup was going to really get Sideswipe if he pulled another one... so if anyone can help me, I'd really appreciate it.//

[Swerve]

OOC: Swerve is nowhere near Bluestreak at this point, but he's headed out that way and the writers don't want Bluestreak to feel too lonely in this thread all by himself. Most of this is in response to this post of Sideburn's, however.

---

Swerve's driving much too fast, and enjoying it too much, to immediately parse the words shouted after him. Oh, he registers a voice and he can't miss the presence of another vehicle after another half-second, but the words take an instant longer to sink in. He briefly sputters and slows just a bit when they finally process.

…Did he just call me 'cutie'? There's no way. No-one can be that thick. No-one runs around hollering 'cutie' after other racers.

Okay, so maybe this mech really is that thick. He's the only one back there and Swerve's pretty sure he didn't mishear things… though he wishes he had. He'd be throwing a death glare back at the blue racer if he could. As it is, he just pushes the speed to get more distance. No way is he letting someone dull enough to call him 'cutie' ruin his drive.

[Sideburn]

Sideburn puts on some more speed and easily catches up with Swerve.

And, of course, Sideburn has no problem imagining Swerve being called 'cutie'. ...That's mostly because he has no idea about Swerve's attitude and has never seen him in robot mode, but still.

Sideburn takes Swerve's silence as permission to continue. After all, it's only the ones that talk back that aren't good for chasing.

"C'mon sweetie, let's go for a drive. You're hitting a pretty nice speed there. And I like your wheels. Haven't seen any like them before, but they're pretty sweet. Y'know, if we were back on Earth, there's this nice spot that I know of where we could watch the sun set..."

[Bluestreak]

"South... go south... yeah, I can go south." He drops to the ground, folding into car mode on the way down, and begins heading in that general direction. There's a nice metal road curving past some empty houses that look a little like beachside condos, and he takes this road in a vaguely southerly direction.

"Wonder who's coming to meet me," he muses out loud. "And I wonder what Kup meant by a lot of changes. Wow, I hope that doesn't mean the Decepticons have won the war! Or will win the war, since he's from the future and I'm not... but maybe his future's different from mine... though he does sound like my universe's Kup, and if we're from the same universe, we should have the same future..."

It's all making a confusing muddle in his CPU. Maybe things will make more sense once he's talked to Kup some more. Or one of the others -- who else from his universe has made it here?

---

OOC: Should we do a time-skip here? A bunch of threads about just driving toward each other would be a bit tedious...

[Swerve]

Swerve twitches the instant he parses 'sweetie'. The twitch looks more like a steering shimmy, but it's a twitch all the same. Smelt this; he doesn't care if the other racer can keep pace. He isn't about to just take that sort of talk. Does the idiot think he's a femme?

"Leakin' idiot!" Swerve guns his engine hard, wringing a furious snarl from it and a bark from his tires as they grab for more traction in answer to the increase in speed. "I ain't your Primus-fragged 'sweetie'!" he bellows at Sideburn and, to punctuate, swings over to ram the blue car broadside.

[Sideburn]

"Whoa!" Sideburn manages to dodge Swerve, but just barely. "Hey, watch it! You could hurt someone!" Obviously, he doesn't realize that that was the point.

"And, erm... Sorry. But the way you looked, an you weren't talkin' back..." Yes, Sideburn feels foolish for hitting on another mech.

[Bluestreak]

OOC: If it's all right with Swerve and Sideburn, I'm going to go ahead and do a time skip here...

---

After a long, uneventful drive, Bluestreak finally spots signs of mechanoid life -- two cars, one red and one blue, speeding toward him. They're no one he recognizes, but he's too happy to finally see another mech to care.

The gray Datsun shoots forward to greet them. "Hey there! Hey! I'm Bluestreak! What are your names?"

[Swerve]

OOC: Yeah, s'fine, Bluestreak. Sorry I forgot to answer you earlier.

---

Swerve stopped hurling invective at Sideburn a while ago, when his exhaust systems threatened to quit altogether if he didn't shut up and let himself cool down. Does that mean he's any less torqued at the blue car? No. Not just no, frag no. If it were possible to make another racer's tires blow out by sheer willpower, Swerve would have Sideburn running on bare rims by now. The fact that Sideburn's tires remain intact proves only one thing: clearly, there is no Primus.

A point rammed home by the sickeningly cheerful greeting thrown by the grey car headed their way. Swerve is beginning to regret volunteering. The drive was awful, his only company has been this slagging overclocked moron Sideburn, and now this Bluestreak – who isn't even blue at all! – has to go and be all… happy.

Swerve hits the brakes and jams his steering hard to the left, sliding into a tight 180° to match Bluestreak, just narrowly missing Sideburn's front bumper in the process. It just seems quicker and easier this way than stopping and turning around.

"…Swerve," he grudgingly answers Bluestreak's question once the turn is complete.

[Sideburn]

Sideburn doesn't get why Swerve is still mad at him. He said sorry! And his attempts at normal conversation only earned him more cussing. So he decided he was probably better off keeping quiet and daydreaming about that sweet car Kelly owned...

And then what's probably their target calls out to them. Sideburn jerks out of the way as Swerve spins to go the other way. "Hey! Watch it! If you're not more careful, you'll end up crashing with someone!" However, Sideburn does a similar spin and falls in behind the other two.

"Hi there Bluestreak! I'm Sideburn."

[Bluestreak]

"Hey Swerve, hey Sideburn," Bluestreak greets, falling into place beside the red car. "I just talked to Kup, and he told me some of what's going on. I don't recognize you guys, so maybe you're from the future? Or maybe the past? Or maybe you're from one of those other universes like Kup was saying. Do you guys know Optimus Prime? Or Megatron? Hey, has Prime made it here? Then you guys probably do already know him, heh heh..."

His own mention of Megatron triggers another thought. "It's not just Autobots being sucked here, is it? There's Decepticons too, aren't there? Seems you can't go anywhere in the galaxy without running into 'Cons. They're worse than glitchmice, aren't they?"

[Swerve]

From one blabbermouth to another. Great. Why did he volunteer for this, again?

Oh, right, Swerve reminds himself. He'd volunteered for the sake of driving. Driving that he hadn't been able to enjoy the least bit. Slagging Sideburn.

The return trip isn't shaping up to be much better. Sideburn's acting like Swerve kicked him somewhere sensitive, Bluestreak babbles too leaking much to get in any answers edgewise, and Swerve just does not fragging have the patience to cope with either. He knows of an Optimus Prime, who happens to be very dead. He even has some of his wiring. And he knows of a Megatron, too. He happens to hate Megatron and the Decepticons quite a lot.

"Yeah, there're Decepticons here," he growls.

[Sideburn]

"I know the Optimus and Megatron from my universe... Haven't seen either of them here, though. Then again, I got here right before you did. And I've been told there's Decepticons here... Dunno about any Predacons, though."

Sideburn hadn't been trying to act like he'd been kicked somewhere! He just didn't want to give Swerve even more of a reason to cuss him out. But now he can talk to Bluestreak and leave Swerve alone, right? C'mon, he's trying to work with Swerve here!

[Bluestreak]

Bluestreak flinches just slightly at Swerve's growl. What's the matter with him? Did Gears go and get an upgrade or something? He wonders if he's just always that way or if this planet is really that bad. Sideburn seems cheery enough, even if he's another newbie and probably won't be able to answer many questions.

"So no getting away from Decepticons just by reality-hopping, huh? Predacons? Never heard of them, what are they? A combiner team, or something else? We have the Stunticons, Constructicons, and Combaticons, so I guess in the future there could be Predacons, or there could have been Predacons in the past..."

Yes, this'll go on if you let it.

[Swerve]

Swerve's always this way. Well, he occasionally has his calm moments. Unfortunately for the other two cars, this just isn't one of them. And the situation isn't helped at all by mention of that word.

"Stunticons? What d'you know about Stunticons?" he demands of Bluestreak. Stunticons. Dead End, that slag-sucker.

[Sideburn]

"In my universe, the Decepticons are a sub-group of the Predacons. An' most of them- the Commandos- are a combiner team, and form Ruination. Scourge isn't a part of the combiner, but he's the leader of the Decepticons and answers only to Megatron."

Sideburn doesn't respond to Swerve's question, mostly because it wasn't aimed at him and he doesn't know anything about these so-called "Stunticons" anyways.