Overlord
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Post by Overlord on May 12, 2011 22:29:54 GMT -5
Month 7, Week 1, Day 1, Ship rock room, open
A very, very large flaming skeletal hulk arrives on the rocks, sprawled out supine, not moving. It's at least twice as tall as the average Transformer.
Despite all of the horrendous damages it displays, it's very much alive. This thing goes beyond triply redundant military hardware. It's something else entirely.
For someone familiar with machines of this particular reality, the neural cluster has been disabled. It's not a hard job at all to reach in and turn it back on if they'd like to talk to the fiery fellow. It's so damaged, after all. What threat could it be?
They'd be wrong to think that, of course. So very wrong.
They are lucky in only one respect. Megatron is dead, and they have as long as it takes for Overlord to come to terms with that fact.
It won't be long enough.
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Flame
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Post by Flame on May 12, 2011 22:40:24 GMT -5
Bodies on fire are nothing new to Flame; only the size of the hulk is daunting in this case, and still, he merely blinks at it, then rises halfway from his seat. There's hardly anything left of the body but the superstructure. Even that is grossly damaged.
"I usually cause this," he murmurs to his fellow rock watcher, "not solve it. I don't suppose you have any extinguisher?" He asks this while checking behind the console for some sort of handheld unit.
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Oil Slick
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Post by Oil Slick on May 14, 2011 0:37:22 GMT -5
Oil Slick stands, and his bubble deploys automatically on reflex. Flame's question causes his arms to come to bear, transforming into their dispenser forms. "I've got a bit on-hand, and can make more. Got to be prepared for chemical fires after all. Be ready to activate the shield."
Stepping around the desk and closer to the burning body, Oil Slick douses it with extinguishing foam, and then checks over the body once it's extinguished.
"...he's got what looks like a spark chamber, and a brain module. Perhaps one of yours? He seems comatose - someone's home, but the lights aren't on."
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Overlord
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Post by Overlord on May 14, 2011 21:36:23 GMT -5
It's a lucky thing Oil Slick was there. Metal fires are absolutely abominable and notoriously tricky to extinguish. Water can make them worse! Some of the rocks and the floor had already started to kindle, but Oil Slick makes it there in time, and the fire dies.
Now there is just a smoking, steaming black hulk. For a fellow machine, the smoke has the most unpleasant of acrid tangs to it, in the way that the stench of burned flesh is loathsome to those human insects. It's cloying, and the scent is likely going to cling and cling for days, stubborn and resistant to showers and scrubbing.
Ashes flake from the body. It doesn't move, but it's very much alive.
Go ahead, wake it back up. Doesn't it call? Doesn't it speak in the voice of all those victims, the ones Flame couldn't save? The ones Oil Sick wouldn't have wanted to save in the first place?
Does it whisper? Or does it roar? Does it command?
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Flame
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Post by Flame on May 15, 2011 9:16:35 GMT -5
Flame remains behind the console, one hand obediently hovering over the button that will activate the shield, while Oil Slick reports on the body. The gutted, ravaged form makes him ache with memory, makes his nimble hands twitch. He could save this one. He might be able to stop death if only he tries; he can already smell it, that familiar reek of immolated metals. He hardly blinks despite the way the stench fills the room. He might still save this one. But if he goes over there to examine it, he can't be ready with the shield. Is this some new, demented test Spinister devised?
"You take the console," he suggests slowly, "and I can examine him more thoroughly." Going over promptly and leaving the controls unmanned would be a stupid mistake on his part.
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Oil Slick
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Pharmacists do it over the counter.
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Post by Oil Slick on May 18, 2011 22:49:00 GMT -5
Handy thing about that bubble and the systems attached to it - it manages to filter a good portion of the stench, but not all of it. Oil Slick's face contorts into a scowl as it fills the dome, but he steps away. Flame's idea is a good one. "Very well then", he answers, going to trade places with the tank.
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Overlord
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Post by Overlord on May 19, 2011 21:51:37 GMT -5
The funny thing about the body is that vital signs are not crashing. After that much damage, on a normal Transformer, they would be. This body is stable, not well, but not in particularly critical condition. The self-repair systems are even active. Of course, repairs would help, but given a few months, this new stranger could possibly just walk off his injuries, untended, if he had fuel enough.
What kind of Transformer is built like that?
All Flame needs to do enable the neural cluster, and the stranger could even get up and move.
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Flame
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Post by Flame on May 20, 2011 20:48:22 GMT -5
Flame checks vitals first once he's beside the startlingly huge body to be sure the new arrival won't drop off while he tries to verify the rest of his miserable condition. The strength of the baseline he finds is unsettling; all this damage, so many injuries, yet this wretch might as well simply be recovering from an intensive surgery. He's diminished, but steady.
All this is dutifully reported aloud for Oil Slick – Flame is a good and proper little trainee – as Flame connects a diagnostic scanner and takes a fuller measure of his patient's condition. Just what, he wonders privately, could inspire a soul to cling this fiercely in the face of such grievous wounds? What could bring out this resilience? Determination, of the sort that kept Fusion alive long enough to drag in two other half-eaten soldiers after the first wave before his body crumbled right before Flame's eyes? Fear, that cold thing that held Flattop on this side of the veil while his commander ripped him, spark and brain module, from his shredded frame and couched him in the legless, blasted shell Flash left behind?
It's a question that sits anxiously on Flame's lips, begging to be asked. He needs to know. Anxious, he shuffles around so he can reach that surprisingly durable neural cluster. If this is an Autobot, well, Oil Slick is ready with security measures. If this is a particularly violent Autobot, Flame doubts Spinister will be all that put-out to hear some pain-mad wreck of an Autobot throttled the life out of their resident expatriate.
"Bringing him online," says Flame as he reconnects his scanner and enters the command.
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Oil Slick
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Post by Oil Slick on May 24, 2011 18:44:42 GMT -5
Oil Slick hovers a hand over the force-field button, and nods at Flame as he reports. "Rather surprised something that wrecked could still be so functional. Must've been built like an adamantium brick slaghouse..."
Guess they can find out what makes him so tough - or lucky - momentarily.
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Overlord
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Post by Overlord on May 28, 2011 21:21:27 GMT -5
Overlord was ready for the Autobot to go on and have his fun. His whole life has been a matter of control, and he had just had it shown to him by a farcical primitive hominid that he had put his life in the hands of someone who forgot him. He could just spend the rest of the time smouldering on the floor.
Except that while he's very easily bored, this situation is different. Overlord observes, stating a fact without pain or much inflection, "That wasn't an orbital jump."
He hasn't done orbital jumps often. Overlord doesn't need to. His wings have always been all he needed to possess the freedom of the stars. Still. This was not an orbital jump.
Overlord grudgingly takes a look around, as if doing the surrounding a favour by beholding them. He's on a pile of rocks in what looks like a Decepticon ship. A bit unfamiliar, but they all are unfamiliar. They always have been. Again, his own wings have always sufficed him.
There's something of a control console and - he sits up sharply, ash falling from his creaking body, and he tilts his head, one functional optic taking a better look at those graced with his presence. Overlord states further, "Ah, a Gideon's Glue Survivor. What a silly name, I always thought. Like a dare. The way you're forever looking for cover is quite characteristic and distinct from the way that those who suffered the Immolation of Iltix X watch the sky. Didn't Gideon tell you not to stand downwind? Or, ah..."
His gaze drags itself inexorably to Flame's blue optics and his chest piece. He points and continues, "That's new, and your new friend there?" Overlord nods to Oil Slick, seemingly amiably enough. "The chemical warrior? The one with the love affair with fear? How is it that you can find it within yourself to stand so close to him?"
It's all hollow blather. What's rattling around in the heads of those two lost souls is worth a grand total of nothing, but it's something to pick and pry at, a distraction to keep Overlord from the fact that his own mind is caving in on itself, that it was always empty, a mere illusion of solidity, its foundation built on the clear blue sky.
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Flame
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Post by Flame on May 31, 2011 20:57:04 GMT -5
For a moment, Flame is about to question the matter of an orbital jump. For a moment.
Then the patient speaks that name. He names the judge and gives a verdict and the mockery cuts deep, lighting along all the ill-healed scars. Flame's face is a mask of raw fury for an instant. It passes, angry disdain settling in its place. He says nothing, clenching his jaw, only snatches away his scanner without bothering to unplug it first since the patient is already trying to move on his own. He especially says nothing of his breastplate or of Oil Slick, though his indignant stare flickers briefly in the chemist's direction – uncertain. Worried. Seeking.
He speaks no ill of his compatriots. He is loyal. He knows his place because it's where they told him to be. He retreats toward that shred of safety, beyond the border of the force field, closer to Oil Slick. Where he belongs.
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Overlord
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Post by Overlord on Jun 2, 2011 17:24:02 GMT -5
OOC: Skipping Oil Slick due to time out.
Overlord feels no satisfaction as Flame all but confirms what Overlord saw in those blue optics and spoke into the sooty air here. He's right. Of course he is. So the Autobot broke and the Decepticons picked up the pieces and now the victim has fallen in with his tormentors. How typical.
What is interesting, however, is that there is no response at all to his conjecture that this was not an orbital jump. Overlord tries to stand, and he feels woozy and wobbly, so he half crawls, lurching over toward Flame and Oil Slick, standing together in a silly little show of solidarity, and he inquires, "Why was I brought here? What would you have of me?"
The Decepticons usually want nothing more of him than to never see him. To be summoned is quite odd. Are they with the DJD, perhaps? That would be splendid! Lawmen have some fantastic neuroses. Perhaps Overlord could set one partner against the other.
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Oil Slick
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Pharmacists do it over the counter.
100ccs of Pure Evil
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Post by Oil Slick on Jun 5, 2011 8:27:02 GMT -5
Once Flame retreats, Oil Slick activates the force field. He doesn't like this 'bot. For one, he pegged him so well with just a look. Some kind of mind-reader? For two, he shouldn't be moving or talking so easily. He looks like he should be in ICU.
//Do you know this mech, Flame?//
Oil Slick steps from behind the console. "The reason is a mystery - unknown forces have been summoning our kind to this universe for unknown reasons. Various Transformers from different times and universes, all drawn here by these," he gestures to the rocks in Overlord's side of the forcefield. "These fragments of Cybertron."
Oil Slick's face grows deathly serious. "You seem to know a lot about me. Who are you?"
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Flame
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Post by Flame on Jun 6, 2011 17:44:00 GMT -5
//No. No, I don't.// Flame shakes his head and backs away further behind the dubious safety of the console as what's left of the patient crawls toward the force field. He does not know the one who knows him. He wonders if he should. //I'm sure I would remember meeting someone with this stature,// he adds. Had he ever seen Jetfire as more than a holographic bust, he might be able to make the comparison.
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Post by Needlenose on Jun 6, 2011 21:31:52 GMT -5
Needlenose saunters into the room, summoned by Oil Slick. Rather, he was alerted to the new arrival by Oil Slick. He was summoned by his own curiosity. Zigzag sits on his left shoulder, while Sunbeam walks in behind.
"Hello, hello!" he says cheerfully, then tilts his head, left wing skewed, as he takes in the room, more alert than he's trying to seem. "My dear Oil Slick, I do believe he's not in near as good a condition as you suggested," and considering Oil Slick said he'd been in the smelter, that's saying something. He moves nearer the control panel, with the others, and though he tries to look calm, he's rather wary at this point. Only a few days before his arrival, he was hunting things that should be dead but weren't, that were kicking far past when they should have been, and though he's had a couple of years since then to deal with it, it's still a matter that leaves him on-edge.
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