I see the Decepticons had fun naming this one. It’s cute…I should make a mechanimal cracker and see if she bites off its head.
“Good to see you Headbite. I know this is a lot to take in, but you’re doing great. Better than expected, actually. Though there might be something wrong with your voice, you’re repeating certain words a lot. If it’s alright with you, could I come close and do a diagnostic? Just want to make sure there’s no damage from resting in stasis.”
Roaster then looks down at Niko and gives a cautious smile. “See, it will be fine,” she whispers to him. (@MaxinePrimal)
“I can make you whatever treat you’d like when this is over. Fewer things help heal a spark than some sweets as I always say.” She said as she looks back to Headbite.
“Oh, oh, ok,” she mumbled as she moved to follow Roaster. She seemed nice enough, “Do you have copper, copper?” she inquired her head quirking to the side, “Copper is very tasty, tasty,” the bot exclaimed mumbling.
Conjoint walked about behind Tokamak with an air of disassociation with present events, as if he was too busy tuning in to his own thoughts. In reality, however, his eyes were traveling over every bolt and panel of every piece of equipment, every toiling bot, and every disassembled contraption. Conjoint learned early on what kind of equipment might actually be designed to kill you, and the warning signs they gave seemed to be reflected in organic life - same language, different words.
Even so, this guy’s getting a little too involved with the act. Vehicle mods aren’t THAT interesting. Okay maybe some of them are, but I thought we had a job to do here. When’s he going to ask the big-
Though she doesn’t show it, she is surprised to see that the insecticon was ready not only for her to come close, but to follow her as well. Thinking on it more, that would be for the best. Better to look over Headbite somewhere more private and figure out what to do with her.
“I need to check, but I have plenty of other things too,” Roaster says with a grin.
Careful not to hurt Niko when she moves, Roaster goes to Headbite’s side and, if allowed, wraps one of her arms around Headbite’s arm. Now facing the other bots and crowd does reality really start to hit her. This isn’t an empty set, this isn’t some performance act. There are people, watching her. They could see and hear everything. And any one of them could break her little lie to keep Headbite calm. This had to be prevented fast.
“Hey Headbite? This is Niko,” Roaster says and motions down to the little mikesu. “He’s a friend. Niko, could you help disperse the crowd? I know everyone’s excited and nervous of waking up Headbite, but we need a clear path. If you could help with that too Firestorm, that would be great.”
Looking to Stonefist and Aralysa, she makes a quick analysis and says to Stonefist, “Mr. Bold, could you find and remind me where the medical facility is in this place?”
Pointing to Aralysa she says, “You’re constructed, right? Come with me to help analyze Headbite. Could always use more hands.”
“Sure have!” the insecticon says, his eyes lighting up beneath the goggles. “All these older species, like the nebulons and the humans? Their ships are completely different now- a lot happens in twenty million years, I guess. And with how widespread they are, you get a whole lotta different styles and techniques. And then you got the younger ones, like the mikesu and the lithonians. Lithonian ships are creepy; they’ve got no crew quarters, no command consoles, none of that. The crew tuck their excursion chassis into pods and upload themselves into their ship’s computers. It’s cool, but it’s so weird crawling through one. You feel like you’re being watched the whole time.”
“Track down the journal, yeah,” Ivory’s informant tells him. "Make sure it’s secure. Whoever’s behind this is probably gonna try and nab it again. They’ll probably send better guys next time, too."
“Well, I hope you can find them, then,” Headcase responds.
“Uh…” the rocky bot blurted, regretting the fact that he really didn’t know the way to the Iacon medical facility just yet. "I, uh, don’t actually know. "
Aralysa started in surprise, but after construction was mentioned she composed herself.
“Huh? Oh, uh, yes. From Hecate actually. Let’s take a look at her.” With that, the purple and blue transformer moved quickly towards Roaster and Headbite, looking close at the Insecticon to try to assess her current conduction.
Axis walked over to her bed and retrieved the ancient data tablet, then returning to Beta Maxx so that he could see it.
“This is the journal of Sentinel Prime. The personal diary of my direct predecessor. This is what the terrorists attempted to steel during their attack on the Hall of Records this morning.”
Axis explained.
"Someone clearly wants this relic, and considering the means through which they were willing to get it, I can’t believe it’s for anything good. Somewhere in these countless entries must lie powerful secrets. Information that could prove disastrous if fallen into the wrong hands.
"This is where you come in. I need you to pour over every entry. Search through the entire journal, front to back. If you find anything of interest, anything suspicious, anything that could be used to do harm, I need you to file it away and report it to me.
“But what’s most important is that you report directly to me, and only to me. No matter what you find, you are not to tell a single soul other than myself. Understand?”
Niko stepped out from behind Roaster so that Headbite could fully see him. The mikesu had a big happy smile on his face.
“Hey! Nice to meet ya. Name’s Niko. I’ll make sure nobody tries to bug ya while we get you out of here.”
He said cheerfully.
He then returned to Ferrex, and moved between Headbite and the crowd. He considered giving a loud roar to help disperse things. But seeing how nervous their new friend was, that was probably a bad idea.
“Alright everybody, clear out. You’re in a museum for crying out loud. There’s way more interesting stuff to stair at than a random bug lady. So either move on or at least clear a path.”
Cargo extends a hand. “My name’s Cargo, and this is Zip.”
Graves
Graves stands up and begins returning to his mech, which patiently waits to the side. I need something to eat, he decides for himself, as he climbs back inside the mechanized suit.
“Not even Firestorm, or Cargo, Zipline, or any of the old fellowship?” Beta Maxx asks, puzzled. “I would think they’re all trustworthy confidants, as well, aren’t they?”
With the cybertronian worlds now open to organic visitors, an interplanetary restaurant industry has established itself across Cybertron and the colonies. Many transformers have taken great pains to study the many disciplines of the culinary arts, which are of course largely foreign to a race of robots. According to many interstellar travelogues, the food prepared by these chefs range from “actually pretty dang good”, to “Class-7 Biohazardous Waste Material”.
“Keep me informed,” the contact requests. "I’ll be waiting."
Iacon was a massive city, but there is also the rest of Cybertron to explore, along with the many other worlds of the New Imperium. Space Bridge gates and starliners can take a traveler just about anywhere they want to go.
“Tha-I’m not claustrophobic, but those ships just sound frightening.” Tokamak replied, trying to imaging crawling through one of those Lithonian ships.
“Any unusual repairs with those or human ships or are ship repairs kind of universal? In terms of what needs to be fixed.”
“I know, but please look for one in this facility.” Roaster gave with a tone that almost sounded like she was going to sigh.
“Oh really, me too. I don’t recognize your style, do you know who helped build you?” Roaster asked as she moves Headbite slowly towards what would hopefully be some small, emergency medical room. Maybe they’d resort to a broom closet.
Glad that Niko was helping, Roaster felt her spark jump when the catboy stated this as being a museum. She had been doing all she could to avoid mentioning this was a museum. That had terrible implications and could cause Headbite to freak out. Roaster pauses in her movement to look at Headbite and catch the reaction. Little lights wrack across her brain as she thinks of some excuse if Headbite appears to take this poorly.
“Oh, no; every ship’s different,” the insecticon says. “Even two ships of the same model get modded by their crews, so they’ve got their own unique features. And the galaxy’s a big place- plenty of ways to get your vessel busted up. I see something new every day.”
At Niko’s urging, the crowd that had gathered around Headbite and company begins to disperse. Two security guards begin to approach the scene.
Roaster would be able to find an emergency medical kit mounted on a nearby column. Normally, only museum staff are allowed to use these, but nobody was in a position to stop her from taking it.
Stonefist was about to mutter something about young people these days and head off in a random direction, but Aralysa swiftly turned towards him and pointed him to the right way.
“Over there!” she barked, and the rocky bot mumbled sheepishly,
“It’s, uh, over there.”
“Hmmmm. No one’s asked me that for quite a while. I don’t actually know.” replied the purple and blue armored bot. She thought for a bit, and then shrugged. “Not by name anyway.”
Headbite did not know what the word uttered even meant, and was instead much more fascinated by the odd lights glowing on her new acquaintance’s head. Granted the stasis fog her brain was going through was not helping matters.
In fact, it was fairly ominous for the purple and yellow insecticon to just be staring at Roaster’s head. Especially, considering her name and all that.
“I would like to think so as well. But given what’s potentially at stake I’m not willing to take any chances. In the event we do need to gather the old guard for another quest across the stars, then we can fill them in. But until then I want as few people knowing about this as possible.”
The Eukarian accepts the handshake. His hand was significantly bigger than Cargo’s.
“Nice to meet you my dudes. My name’s Low-Tide.”
“Interesting. Well nice chatting with you, I’ll go fetch my ship now and be back shortly.” Tokamak says, just hanging a bit for whatever farewell the insecticon may give and then walks away.
“There goes that plan,” He says to Conjoint, trying not to be loud enough for the bug to hear. “Seems there’s possibly more human ships here than I would have thought.”
Roaster asks Firestorm (@BlackBeltGamer98) if he would handle the guards and takes the medical kit if there’s a scanner inside. There was only so much she could glean from just looking at Headbite without opening her up and they were in no place to do that. If there is a scanner, she takes it out and scans Headbite to see what it finds.
As she and Aralysa look Headbite over, Roaster is glad that the museum comment didn’t seem to land. She doesn’t seem concerned that the bug is staring at her head so much.
“But you know what they look like?” Roaster asked Aralysa as they worked.