A Sniff in Time

[Elita-1]

"Right then," Elita-1 says, "Let's get going."

She gestures at Holi and Ramulus. "I'll show you where she disappeared from, and Ramulus can point out the trail from there." Her expression softens as she looks back at Holi.

"We'll find her, Holi."

Elita turns and determinedly walks toward the collapsed structure from which the Autobots had been rescuing people when Clipper vanished.

---

Cross-posted from Calvary Arrives

[Ramulus]

Ramulus follows Elita swiftly, neck bend to lower his head towards the ground. "Let's go"

[Holi]

Elita-1's reassurance falls on deaf receptors; Holi stopped listening the moment she pointed him in a direction. He just moves out, mouth set in a grim, determined line, fists balled tightly at his sides. He says nothing to her or to Ramulus. There's nothing to say, because if he can't say something nice, he won't say anything at all.

[Elita-1]

Now, Elita-1 can understand Holi being upset, but if he keeps giving them the cold shoulders, she's going to get a bit snippy.

She might feel like Clipper's disappearance is partially her fault, but she also knows that it isn't. They went through the rubble, very, very thoroughly, and didn't find Clipper. That means either the Micromaster found her own way out from beneath the rubble then got into trouble, or someone took her out from beneath the rubble.

Now they just have to go and find her.

"She was in the building rescuing wounded when it collapsed. We've gone through the entire mess," Elita gestures at the spread out remains, pointedly ignoring the still-unclaimed bodies covered with tarps, "We think she got out somehow. But we don't know if it was under her own power or not."

Elita looks over at Ramulus, "You want to take it from here?"

[Ramulus]

Ramulus can't really feel the negative vibes, but he knows. He knows because he's containing his own concern and stress, and can only think of what the others might be feeling.

"I want to take it from here" he answers Elita reassuringly, momentarily eyeing the terrain. Then he sets off to the point where the marks had first presented themselves to him, raising his head in disgust when the scent of the bodies is taken on the winds past him. It's not rot. But it's not life either and it's repellant.

The ground is covered with dust, itching, disrupting his senses. But they work nonetheless and bring him the smells of stone, spilled water and alien blood amidst the ground. But after a while, searching the ground intensively, Ramulus finds what he's looking for: A fresh, sweet scent that somehow leaves a steelish aftertone on his net. It is nothing like the putrid smell of this planet, and because of that, the Maximal finds it pleasant to focus on. There's something familiar to the scent; something relating to the Event Horizon.

His wandering gains purpose and his companions might be able to notice that he's headed for tossed about debris.
There's a grate in the ground here. Staring at it, he finally concludes, "I want to go down there"
Luckily, so he states, there's no Mayday around to fill his audio receptors with squeamish.

[Holi]

A lot of Holi's mood is bitterness and a lot of it is the urge to remain professional for the sake of the mission, but under all that, he's a bundle of worry and fear. He doesn't want to let that on; it isn't what he should do in this situation. It won't help find Clipper, so he stays quiet, stern-faced, focuses on the task ahead.

"Right," he answers Elita-1 this time, logging the information even as Ramulus takes over. It means taking in a lot of babble and white noise – and a really bad headache later – but Holi opens his receivers to as many bands as he can while Ramulus sniffs round and leads them through the rubble; maybe Holi won't get anything useful, or maybe he will. He can hope.

When Ramulus stops, Holi blinks.

"…Down there?"

[Elita-1]

Elita-1 grimaces. She's no prima donna, but the idea of crawling around in some alien sewer is not high on her To Do list. But if needs must, she can handle some foul odor and a bit of muck on her plating.

She crouches down, grabs hold of the grate and pulls, but it doesn't budge. Elita makes an annoyed sound, then examines the grate itself. Ah, it's got a locking mechanism.

A minute or so of work, and she twists the grate just so one way, then back the other. The grate pops off.

"After you," she says to Ramulas.

[Ramulus]

Down there? Really? Really Really?

Yes, Really.

The goat peers down the hole as Elita lets him go first. He jumps, transforms and plummets down, the makeup of his legs absorbing the landing impact. Getting up, Ramulus disappears down below, making space for the rest. He looks around the tunnels, and concludes with a wrinkle of the nose: "Yuck".

Transforming back again, Ramulus takes some time to rotate his scent systems and identify the new place. Then he goes on looking for Clipper's smell.

[Holi]

At least crawling around in confined, smelly spaces isn't entirely new to Holi. The muck will wash off and the stench will fade, so in he goes after Ramulus, easing himself down the ladder rungs rather than leap the entire way. He swings briefly at the bottom before letting go and dropping into the brackish, filthy water. The airwaves are a little staticky down here – not enough to leave him radio-blind, but enough to make his receivers sting.

"…She wouldn't come down here if she could help it," he murmurs. "She hates getting dirty." Like the time he once came back from training covered in grime and soot and tried to hug her, and she shrieked at him to go clean up right this instant and how he was so coarse sometimes.

[Elita-1]

Elita slowly follows Holi down the ladder, her expression one of extreme distaste. As she drops into the filthy water of the sewer, she can't help but gasp and shudder. There's a slight edge running along the sewer which is not fully under water; she quickly steps onto that.

She shudders again.

"Gah, even a long soak won't get the feel of that muck out of my joints," she mutters, twitching, "Nasty, organic filth- " she breaks off quickly, as she looks ahead at Ramulus.

"No offense."

Louder she asks, "Any luck?"

---

OOC: Do we want to do some small time skips through this part? Otherwise, the minutia of "Elita and Holi follow Ramulus through the sewer" might get tedious.

[Ramulus]

"My good lady, this is organic filth, you are absolutely correct" Ramulus notes, sounding amused, "I am, for one, jealous of you two now.... I'm not due to shedding fur 'till next season!"
(he could take a bath. That is a.... possibility)

The goat busies himself with the scent-sorting, sometimes sticking to walls and pipes on which it lingers strongly. At the end of the tunnel, the ibex disappears around the bend.

---------------
Timeskip till end of sewage approved here!

[Holi]

Holi quietly looks toward the ceiling, rolling the eyes he doesn't have. Sure, he's coarse sometimes, but girls can be such sissies. It's just a little gunk.

He keeps that sentiment to himself, though, and slogs along behind Ramulus, trying to focus past the static ringing in his receivers the entire time. There are whispers and the occasional burst of speech, but it's still full of white noise, garbled, some of it in languages he just doesn't understand. By the time he rounds the bend after Ramulus, he's just about ready to start broadcasting feedback on all bands out of sheer frustration.

In fact, he's so busy getting wound up over the radio that he doesn't quite realise the airwaves are slowly clearing – not until he fully turns the corner and gets hit on all frequencies by blaring advertisements. It's like being punched right in his processors and he claps both hands to his head, shutting off his receivers. The pipes branch off in other directions here, but they're too small for anyone much bigger than Holi to fit through on hands and knees. There's access to the street above, too.

"…Now what?" he grumbles, looking at Ramulus.

[Elita-1]

Unlike Holi, Elita-1 notices the change in air quality rather quickly.

"Oh! Fresh air!" she says, hurrying toward the intersection- not quite running over Ramulus.

She cranes her neck to look up at the street access. "I can't imagine Clipper getting down on hands and knees and crawling through the smaller pipes," she muses, "Though she might have been dragged by someone who could."

"Ramulus?" She gives the Ibex an expectant- and hopeful- look.

[Ramulus]

Ramulus continues, tasting the air carefully. He subjects all options with great care; not excluding possibilities because they might seem unlikely. Eventually, he does mention to the outside upper; "yeah, she must've gone that way" He takes in deep, cycling filters again. Somehow the scent is gradually changing now that they're getting to fresh air. It's turning vile and smothering, which is awkward considering the location.

It is also fading.

Even as he climbs up to the surface, going out into an alley without the sewer stench, the scent is disturbed and broken, leaving loose strands. "Strange, it's like..." He whispers, crosses the path again, "She changes, no, the source does... I don't know what...."
He worries a bit more. Having put up with a lot of beasts in relative close proximity, Ramulus should know how scent intermixes and gains dominance over one another. But he's just not sure. That makes him bristle his fur in crankiness and he sets off instantly, working on the trail avidly.

It takes him a bit longer than before to refind the track, and with this district getting more traffic, he gets stared at. After a moment, Ramulus sets off towards one, determined, direction. There are by far more people on the streets here, and there are far more brighter lights and billboards. It is distracting, a melting pot of sounds, people and scents. Going down the street, then going right about halfway, it only gets busier with people and gambling constructions. The Maximal takes longer and longer to move on.

Eventually, he stops altogether. He stomps the ground in agitation, ears twitch and he bucks his head for a moment, "Maximise" Ramulus growls lowly, switching forms. "It's become too mudded; to much of a mess to find her" He looks to his search companions, twitching a neck-hydraulic; "I can't follow any further"

[Holi]

And so the search carries on! Elita-1 and Ramulus might, if they listen, hear Holi muttering quietly as he walks. It probably sounds like nonsense chatter.

The rambling, under-breath ranting takes his mind off the soreness and his ever-growing fear as he dials up his receivers again. No sign of Clipper, and the scent trail faltering… and still a bunch of useless chatter on the radio. Ads, some twangy-screechy music on another frequency, and – a news program? Holi stops altogether to listen, oblivious to Ramulus's frustration. News programs usually have something useful to say, right? That's how it went on Micro, on Earth….

The expression on Holi's face turns sour as the broadcast continues and he realises it's just a woman complaining about Omega Supreme ruining her store and then turning right around to advertise her new store.

"Stupid," he grumbles even though the broadcast recording can't hear him. "He didn't do it on purpose!" and he kicks a tin can at the nearest wall.