“Well,” Defender replies, “I’m afraid that I’m not Optimus. I’m just an old veteran who has some knowledge of your people’s government, and helped fight a few of your wars. I’m not sure about Oreo and his Mini-Con friend– but they’re all right. They’re civilians, from their looks, although that gun Oreo has is pretty big for a civilian to be carrying.”
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“And I imagine it will only get longer. Hopefully our time in transport to our various destinations will offer time to breath before our next obstacle.” Axis replied.
“Well I’m sure Axis Prime will make sure you guys are safe. From everything I’ve heard about her- which admittedly isn’t a lot- I can’t imagine she’d just leave you to be murdered like that.” Honeycomb said, trying her best to give the prisoners a bit of positivity.
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“Is it?” Leslie says. “I’ve never figured out where cybertronians draw the line when it comes to weaponry. Most civilians over in Sol don’t have anything close to what I’ve seen cybertronians just walking around town with. If it weren’t for the history between our species, I think humans would be a lot more inclined to be wary of you.”
“Hopefully,” Overgrowth echoes. “Though on that note, I would suggest that, once we have returned this ship to its owner- and paid for its damages, of course- we should consider acquiring another vessel more suited for our mission before we travel to Lacuna. We need something with weapons and better armor- and something fast, too, I think.”
“I would, if I were her.” the Sergeant smirks. “But, maybe that’s why I’m a hired gun with a death sentence in twelve systems, and she’s the ruler of an interplanetary nation of giant robots.”
“Do you guys have any food?” the one called Peters asks Honeycomb. “Not sure if you know this, but humans need to eat to maintain energy, and we’ve been shut in this room for a while. You wouldn’t have anything edible on this ship, would you?”
Unfortunately for our heroes’ captive crooks, the Pulsar was designed exclusively for a cybertronian crew, and thus has no food stores or other comforts for organic beings. Primogenitum will be a more hospitable prison, once Overgrowth is able to take the mercenaries there.
On the bridge, Salvage watches our heroes as their search through the wreckage seems to draw to a close. He can’t tell what they’ve found from up here, but something seems to have disturbed them greatly.
Eh, whatever it is can’t be as bad as the terrorcons, he thinks, blissfully unaware of the horrific fates of the drophsip’s pilots.
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“Sorry, but I don’t think there’s any human food on the ship. Oh! But I think I know where I might be able to find some. I’ll be right back. Don’t go anywhere.” Honeycomb quickly left the room and closed the door behind her. She then quickly walked around the ship, looking for one odd bot she saw earlier.
Meanwhile Nova had finally managed to lie down and close her eyes for some long desired rest. But only a moment after she was able to drift off into sleep, there was a loud knock at her door.
Her eyes shot open. “Oh come on. WHAT NOW?” She dragged herself out of her bed and walked over to her door. “Niko I swear if you’re here to bother me again…” She muttered.
The young pilot opened her door to find not the mikesu rockstar she had come to know and tolerate. But instead the smiling face of a youthful insecticon.
“Hello human. I wanted to ask if you had any food to spare?” Honeycomb asked hopefully.
“Allfather give me strength…” She said quietly under her breath. “Yeah, I have food. But you’re a robot. What do you need it for?”
“Well I was talking to your prisoners just now and one of them said they were pretty hungry.”
“Fascinating. I fail to see how that’s my problem.” Nova replied dryly.
“Well you’re the only other human I know of here. And I figured you might have some food, and really hoped you’d be willing to share?”
Nova screwed her eyes shut and pinched the bridge of her nose. She let out a long, irritated sigh. Then she looked back to the insecticon. “If I give you some of my leftovers will you leave me alone?”
“I promise I won’t bother you for the rest of the trip.” Honeycomb quickly replied.
“Alright, fine. Give me a minute.” She walked away from the door and went over to the fridge tucked in the corner of her room. She opened it and dug around, looking for whatever she was willing to give away. A few moments later she returned with arms full of plastic, glass, and cardboard containers.
She walked out on to her narrow balcony and looked up at Honeycomb. “Alright. I got some alfredo pasta that’s only a couple days old, half a jar of pickles, most of a space-Hawaiian pizza, and I think six… hold on-” She opened one of the containers for a quick moment. “-seven hard-boiled eggs. Hopefully this’ll be enough. But they’re still our prisoners. So I didn’t bother microwaving anything.”
Honeycomb carefully took the food off Nova’s hands. “Thank you! I’m sure they’ll really appreciate it.” She said cheerfully before returning to the makeshift holding cell.
“I’m back! And I have some food. Hopefully this’ll be enough to hold you over for a while.” She carefully set the collection of food containers on the floor and waited to see what the mercenaries thought.
“I’ve heard talk of a newly produced cruiser made as a successor to the old Excalibur. From what I’ve heard it’s a remarkable vessel that could serve us well.” Axis replied.
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“For the most part, Cybertronians know and respect the dangers of carrying such weapons,” Defender replied. “Obviously, we do have laws against non-military personnel carrying excessive weaponry, but those laws have been lifted in times of war. Of course, some planets, like Junk, have very lax regulations due to their culture. I’m surprised sometimes that the Junkions haven’t been more aggressive in their politics. They have the weapons and mentality to carry a war beyond normal fighting, given their affinity for dangerous situations.”
He paused, and smiled at the reporter.
“You know, you really make me at home here,” he said. “I haven’t met someone I could talk to about these subjects for years. It’s nice to know that your race still studies these subjects. It shows that at least some of you have the knowledge to make good decisions.”
Oreo arrives back at the ship, feeling quite perturbed by the discovery of the mysterious pilot’s body. Beside him, Razor is running a DNA analysis program on her samples, though it will take a while, given that it’s running on her DNA scanner’s systems.
“Hello,” she says as she passes the others. “Does this ship have any systems that can analyze DNA?”
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@MaxinePrimal @MakutaOisli @ProfSrlojohn @BlackBeltGamer98 @DuneToa @Rukah
Once our heroes have finished their search of the dropship’s wreckage (OOC: this is their last chance to make one final check and maybe take something with ‘em if you feel so inclined) and returned aboard the Pulsar, Salvage takes the battered barge back into the air, and rockets off to Iacon with haste. Fortunately, the rest of the return flight is uneventful. No more pirates or hired guns fall from the sky to make trouble, and Iacon has seen no further attacks in our heroes’ absence. Now that night has fallen again, blue, green, and white lights have come alive within the ancient city’s golden towers, making the buildings shine like brilliant beacons in the darkness.
The Pulsar descends as Riveter’s Rental Spacecraft comes into view. The docks have been scrubbed of flame-retardant foam, but much of the place is still scorched or singed in patches following the incident with the insecticon. Riveter herself comes out of her office to watch the Pulsar return, and her eyes go wide as she eyes the battle damage that her most prized model has sustained.
“What the-! How-! I’m gonna kill those spawns of glitches!” she sputters, stomping over to the cradle in which Salvage brings the ship down. “I don’t care if Unicron’s coming back from the dead again; there ain’t gonna be enough of these guys left to make a tugboat when I’m done with 'em!”
The Hall of Records is still closed, barricaded while its damages are assessed and the Iacon Police make one more search for evidence. The library’s pavilions have been reduced to rubble from bombs and missiles, and the statue that was toppled by its perimeter remains on its side. It will be put upright again, though, and the Hall of Records will be rebuilt soon enough- no part of Iacon has ever remained in ruin for too long.
The Excalibur II is docked at the Tower of Pion space elevator, so high up as to be beyond the sight of Iacon’s citizens. The frigate’s crew unloads the gunship used by the thieves who ransacked the Hall of Records, which had been intercepted by Cybertron’s orbital defense grid before its pilot could make his escape. Officers from the Iacon Police will be taking the ship and its contents to their headquarters to have it all analyzed, and its pilot will be detained and interrogated with the rest of his cohorts.
One of the thieves, though- the ex-NEST operative named Viktorya Kaidanovsky- has been released thanks to Ivory’s intervention, and she has taken residence in a shelter on Iacon’s lowest level. Per the instruction of our heroes, though, an officer covertly watches over her.
The space bridges at the city limits emit a steady stream of offworld visitors from their gateways, and just as many travelers are leaving Iacon through them, also. Additional guards have been posted around the space bridges in light of the attack, but again, no further incidents have occurred. Antennae blossom from the roofs of Iacon’s interstellar communications towers as people inside make calls to friends and family on other worlds.
Speculation is running wild through the streets of Iacon. People trade rumors in hushed whispers on street corners and in parks. Bots returning from the Tomb of the Primes are gossiping about the fantastic event that occurred there; combine that with what limited information that has been made public about the Hall of Records attack and our heroes’ activities, and some wild stories are already being spun.
The mercenaries creep forward and peer down at what Honeycomb has brought them. The leftovers will hardly make for a proper feast, but they are better than nothing.
“Where’d you get all this?” the Sergeant asks as his troops start to divvy up the pickles, pasta, and eggs. They’re much more hesitant to start digging into the pineapple-defiled pizza, however. These professional killers have had to eat some pretty disgusting things in their time- things that could hardly be considered food by most intelligent beings- but there are some lines that even they will hesitate to cross.
“If she’s anything like her namesake, I think she would be an excellent choice,” Overgrowth says enthusiastically. “I was going suggest allowing me to procure a Knight cruiser from Ironclad, but Excalibur II would do nicely.”
“If you would excuse, me, though, I must now go to our prisoners,” the Knight then says, and she turns to leave. “I am confident that I can deliver them safely to Primogenitum on my own, though if anyone wishes to provide us escort, I would welcome the company.”
“Hey, we’ve been doing pretty well for ourselves recently,” Leslie says with a frown, and he crosses her arms over her chest. “We haven’t had a major war in nearly fifteen thousand years- that might not be very long for cybertronians, but for us humans, that’s pretty remarkable. It took us nearly bombing each other into extinction and letting nanotech chew up Earth to figure it out, sure, but you gotta give us some credit.”
Unfortunately, the Pulsar’s medical suites are tailored exclusively for cybertronians, which means that the equipment that Razor needs won’t be found here. The Iacon Police headquarters, though, would have such equipment: with other species now welcome on Cybertron, the New Imperium’s institutions must be prepared to combat the unfortunate reality of interstellar crime. Since Razor is now in the company of our heroes, getting access to these facilities should be much easier for her than the average citizen.
At the Primal Basilica, Downburst and the other Angelicons maintaining the seat of the New Imperium’s power have been bombarded with urgent requests from the leaders of Cybertron’s colony worlds for an emergency meeting to discuss recent events. Among the politicians is Chancellor Nirali Patel of Amity, who also serves as the de facto liaison between the cybertronians and the rest of human civilization. Defender, and anyone else who wishes to get humanity more involved in this adventure, may wish to speak with her; and the rest of the colonial leaders are also clamoring to learn more of what has transpired on Cybertron.
“President Bootleg, I’m sure Salvage is just very busy right now,” Downburst sighs to the hologram in front of her. “That doesn’t mean-”
“President-Czar-God-King Bootleg, please,” the hologram interrupts. It takes considerable effort for Downburst to avoid rolling her eyes.
“That title is pretty much the one part of this job that I actually like, so I’d like to hear it, please,” Bootleg continues. “And Salvage is never too busy to talk to me. That means he’s probably dead. And if he’s dead, it can be reasonably assumed that Axis and everybody else with him is dead too. Which leaves this whole operation here flailing around like a chicken with its head cut off. We’re leaderless and vulnerable and basically we’re probably all going to die.”
“Don’t you think you’re jumping to conclusions just a little?” Downburst protests.
“Kid, the last time some old doohickey that once belonged to a Prime got this kind of attention, the Heralds of Unicron showed up and I almost got eaten by an Infernocon, like, twenty times,” Bootleg insists. “I’ve got a Spider-Sense for this kinda thing and lemme tell ya, it’s going off right now.”
A cloaked ship speeds away from Cybertron’s orbit, making a break for the edge of the Hadeen solar system. Within its dampened hull, the human man known as Gabriel paces through tight, dimly-lit corridors that wind through the vessel’s interior like metal arteries. Pinpricks of red light glare down at Gabriel between the bulkheads as he seethes and gnashes his teeth.
“I wasn’t the one who insisted upon relying on the dregs of society for such a crucial step in the plan,” he snarls into the darkness ahead of him. No response comes apart from the rhythmic pulsing of the ship’s power core. Gabriel comes to a halt, glowering at the shadows on the bulkheads and the points of light twinkling within them.
“I was careful- fortunately for you,” he scoffs at no-one. “The pawns know nothing of consequence, and I will deal with the survivors in due time. In the meantime, you-… perhaps you SHOULD consider my recommendation, in light of recent events.”
Gabriel whips around as if to face another unseen party, his cloak billowing out around him. “No!” he snaps, the word echoing harshly down the corridor. "When have we ever cared what Dominus wants? Point him to another planet to raze for the time being, keep him occupied. There are certain pieces that haven’t yet fallen into place; I need more time.
“Let them!” he then says, turning around again and storming up to his vessel’s cockpit. Holographic panels swirled around a circular porthole looking out into empty space, displaying glyphs from a multitude of alien languages, various planets, and persons of interest. “They’ll find it for us. Much more reliable than petty thieves and brutish mercenaries, these interlopers. No… no, they wouldn’t be so foolish. Let them chase after Sentinel Prime for now. Hold back Dominus and his rabble until I’ve finished; I’ll give the signal when it’s done.”
The anger fades from Gabriel’s face as whatever prompted these strange outbursts subsides. Now, his brow furrows as he contemplates his next move. He raises a gloved hand, and more holographic panels materialize in front of him. Some show the fierce faces of several of his operatives- more capable and trustworthy agents than the thieves he’d hired for the mission on Cybertron- while another displays a map of the planet Clemency’s south pole, taken from a whether satellite. Yet another shows the faces of Liege Maximo and Beta Maxx, and one more has a peculiar emblem upon it: a sword and a lantern together inside a wreathe of flowers…
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“I asked our human companion for it. She’s in this big blue-green mech with huge shoulder cannons- you guys probably already saw it now that I think about it. Anyway it’s got this big boxy backpack on it, I think she lives in there. She didn’t seem super happy about it, but she agreed to give you guys some of her food so you wouldn’t go hungry.” Honeycomb explained.
“I won’t lie, there’s more than a little nostalgia that plays into the choice of space craft. The thought of sailing the stars again in an ironclad cruiser, facing off against some unknowable enemy. I don’t show it as much as Maximus does, but since I’ve had more time to process everything, it has gotten me a little excited.” Axis replied with a pleasant grin.
“I trust that you’ll be more than capable of escorting our prisoners on your own. But if you wish I can assign a small group of additional knights to go with you, provided no one here doesn’t volunteer first.”
Maximus sat by one of the windows, looking out at the shining cityscape of Iacon. Since he moved here he’s been able to appreciate the beauty of it, in its strange artificial way. But nothing beat the rolling hills and towering mountains of home. Not in his eyes at least. He closed his optics and took a deep breath, imaging the wind blowing past him and the feeling of grass under his feet. Won’t be too long until he’ll be able to feel it again.
The predacon’s thoughts were interrupted by the sounds of heavy metal footsteps, as Gungnir approached.
“Something on your mind? You look, I dunno. Contemplative.” Nova asked.
Maximus smiled and turned around. “Nah. I’m just excited to see home again. I haven’t been to Eukaris in ages. I miss the place like you wouldn’t believe.”
“Huh, I see.” Nova replied.
“What about you? You ever get homesick? A human like yourself, you’re a pretty long ways away from anything that must be familiar.” Asked Maximus.
Nova was quiet for a moment before she answered. “No… no I don’t really get homesick. I left my home… very deliberately. I left and never looked back. I’ve mostly just been drifting ever since.”
Maximus nodded. “Fair enough. I’m not one to judge. I’m sure you had your reason.”
An awkward silence fell between the two. After almost a full minute of quiet, Maximus spoke up.
“By the way, something that’s been on my mind for a while. Why do you walk around in that big suit all the time?”
“What do you mean?” Nova asked.
“Well from what I’ve seen, which admittedly isn’t a lot, humans don’t usually spend as much time in their machines as you do. As far as I can tell they only pilot them when they’re in battle or using them for work. But you, I’ve seen you in that thing a heck of a lot more than I’ve seen you out of it. Why is that?”
Nova went quite again for another few moments. Her mech shifted awkwardly. With one arm reaching over and holding the other, in a nervous pose that reflected her own. The machine sat down in the nearest seat, keeping its optics trained on Maximus. “It’s a long story… one that I really don’t want to get into right now. I guess all I can say is that it’s the only place I feel safe, in more ways than one.”
Maximus thought for a moment before shrugging his shoulders. “Makes sense. I’m not gonna force you to talk about anything you don’t want to. We all have our demons. I have mine, and it seems you have yours. Not my business to pry where I’m not wanted.”
Another few moments pass, before Nova utters only a single word. “Thanks.”
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Firestorm made a very thorough final check of the ship for any scraps of clues that could be useful; even a strange bio signature, bit of genetic code or a fingerprint could be enough to make it worth it as he practically checked every circuit board and screw.
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Kitai walked back to the ship. He had seen enough disgusting mutilation and felt there wasn’t much else to do.
As the ship took off, he wandered around, seeing if he could come across anybody.
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“Hello!”
Razor looks up to see Kitai standing near her, his expression unreadable as he was about five times her height.
“Would you happen to know where I could go to get these DNA samples tested? I was thinking that the Iacon Police could do that, but I’m afraid they might not like my credentials for obtaining them.”
Meanwhile, Defender and Oreo head over to Axis.
“I understand that we should contact the humans’ Alliance about the presence of the mercenaries earlier. Would you be able to get us permission to speak to the necessary leaders?”
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“I wouldn’t want to take any Knights stationed in Iacon away from their duties,” Overgrowth replies as he walks down the hall. “Though the prisoners might appreciate having a vehicle to ride in- traversing Iacon by foot would be tiresome for them, I’m sure.”
Salvage gets up from the helm controls and spots an obviously irate Riveter marching up the gangplank. “Before we do anything, we should probably smooth things over with her first,” he suggest to anybody who might be listening, pointing at the angry shipwright. "Otherwise, I think she’ll be happy to strip the plating off our bodies to patch up the ship’s hull. "
“Well, uh… tell her we said thanks,” one of the mercenaries says awkwardly.
The echoing of massive footsteps heralds Overgrowth’s arrival to the Makeshift cell. She’s an intimidating sight to the unarmed mercenaries: her sharp, emerald armor plating twists into jagged spikes that erupt from her arms and back, and weaving through the mechanisms of her body are thorny techno-organic creepers.
“Humans!” she says, glaring down at the prisoners. A clawed hand wrests on the moss-covered hilt of her sword. “You are now in the custody of the Order of the Knights of Cybertron. I shall take you to the planet Primogenitum to be detained until your people’s authorities come for you. It would be within your best interests to continue cooperating with us- I promise that you will be treated humanely and protected from whatever threatens your life.”
The mercenaries wolf down their last few bites of food and pick themselves up from where they’d settled down in the trashed guest room. They offer no protest to Overgrowth’s command- the Knight’s stance and tone leave little room for argument, and our heroes have been treating them reasonably well so far, all considered. Overgrowth steps out of the doorway to allow the prisoners to walk into the hall, and they follow her outside.
There is some dried blood and viscera around the mutilated remains of the second dropship pilot, and his helmet camera seems to be the only part of him and his suit that wasn’t completely taken apart in whatever process merged the two together. Its casing has been scorched and warped in the fire, but its storage device may yet survive.
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“Er, do we have insurance on this vehicle?” Defender asks. “Despite this obviously being caused by the mercenaries, we might need some extra cash to keep from getting into a fight…”
Oreo has also noticed the shipwright coming their way, and has backed behind some nearby boxes, obviously scared by her very appearance.
Razor is oblivious, as she is busy finding directions to the Iacon Police headquarters.
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“Certainly. As a matter of fact I could accompany you personally. I’m going to return to the Primal Basilica to gather some of my belongings before we take off for Astrum. If you join me I could get you connected with the proper individuals when we get there.” Axis replied.
Honeycomb waved to Overgrowth and the prisoners as they left. She picked up the untouched pizza box and went off to find the human in the mech.
Meanwhile Nova and Maximus were already stepping out of the ship. Nova looked up at the open night sky. The intense light pollution of Iacon left it bereft of stars, leaving only an empty expanse of inky darkness. Her mind passively wandered from thought to thought, memory to memory.
“You sure you won’t want to come with me to Eukaris? It’s a beautiful place. I’m sure you’d love it.” Maximus offered.
Gungnir turned its gaze down from the sky and looked to the predacon. “Maybe sometime later. I can’t pass up a chance to meet this Liege guy.”
“Right. Why are you so interested in him anyway?” Maximus asked.
“Let’s just say he’s really familiar to someone I know. I want to ask him a few questions.” Nova replied.
Maximus shrugged. “Fair enough.”
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Firestorm rifles through for the storage device.
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The helmet camera’s memory card appears intact. With luck, whatever footage it contains may shed some light on the dropship pilots’ horrific deaths.
Overgrowth passes Firestorm as she leads the human mercenaries out of the ship. She nods to him as she goes by, but says nothing; the mercenaries, meanwhile, step to the side a little to put as much distance between themselves and the Headmaster as they can.
“Oh, I don’t think money alone is gonna help us out here,” Salvage says, a note of dread in his voice as Riveter comes closer. “We need Primus.”
“What in Alpha Trion’s beard did you do?!” Riveter shouts to our heroes, clasping the sides of her head. If she had hair, she’d be tearing out right now.
“You said you were going on a quick flight to the Tomb, not flying off to a warzone!”
“Uh, technically, the war kinda flew to us,” Salvage replies, stepping forward. “We were just minding our own business-”
Riveter cuts the Junkion off with a human curse, equating his excuse to an unpleasant organic substance. Alien profanity has become more common in cybertronian vernacular since the Reunification.
“But we were!” Salvage insists. Turning to our heroes, he pleads, “Guys, back me up here!”
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Maximus was about to say something, but Nova stepped forward before he had the chance. The gigantic cannons on the back of her machine swung up and over its shoulders. They weren’t specifically aimed at Riveter, instead just left in a simple standby position. But the display was still plenty clear. “Our ship was attacked by a team of mercenaries while on route to the Tomb of The Primes. We worked as quickly and efficiently as possible. While the damage they inflicted is extensive, I assure you that we brought your craft back to you in the best condition we possibly could have. I would know, seeing as I’m the one who brought the mercenary ship down.” Her tone wasn’t angry per say, but it was very clear and firm. While there wasn’t seemingly any malice, nothing about her words was gentle.
Maximus stayed back during their entire exchange. He smiled, happy to see the closed off girl put herself out there for someone else’s sake.
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Defender smiles. The argument reminds him of several during the war, government disputes and general confusion as the Cybertronians interacted with the Human governments.
“I believe that legally you are entitled to compensation for the damage,” he says to Riveter.
“As I joined after this fight, I can’t say how extensive the damage is, but I will be willing to help pay for repairs until any insurance kicks in.”
Oreo has appeared from behind the crates. Still scared by Riveter’s towering rage, he unconsciously fiddles around with some of his armor, and remains in the background. Beside him, Razor finishes searching for directions, and waits to leave for the Police Department.
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Before Ivory joined the bots confronting the police, Ivory opted to check in on the woman. Make sure she had what she needed an all that
————-
On the other end, LD-L1 follows the main group like a shadow, watching, if saying litle.
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Firestorm runs diagnostics then plays the data if it’s safe.
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“If you’re trying to intimidate me with that little display there, hon, you’re gonna need to find yourself some bigger guns,” Riveter says to Nova, looking rather unimpressed by the Orion mech’s hardware. “I used to build warp cannons- little human peashooters don’t scare me.”
“Forgive her, ma’am,” Overgrowth says, stepping forward. “She is a human juvenile, and thus prone to irrational actions.”
The Knight holds one hand in front of Nova and shoots her a quick, cautionary look. “She does, however, speak truly, as does my other companion,” she continues.
These humans here," she says, pointing down to the disarmed mercenaries at her feet, “are the ones responsible for the damages to your vessel, and we are indeed ready and willing to pay for its repairs.”
Riveter takes in a deep breath and holds it for a moment, the plating around her right eye twitching as she does. “Alright,” she sighs. “Let me have a look at everything that’s broken, and I’ll work out a number for y’all. But after this, you’re gonna need to go trouble somebody else if you’re gonna need a ship again.”
There is no sign of the Junkion ship that LD-L1 borrowed to reach the Tomb of the Primes, or its pilot. The vessel must have returned earlier, and the pilot must have gone elsewhere. She might hold on to those funny coins that she was given, though; she’d need proof when bragging to her friends that she played a part, if a minor one, in the latest struggle for the fate of the universe.
Firestorm discovers that much of the footage on the card is corrupted. Accessible fragments show orbital views of Cybertron’s northern hemisphere, and brief snippets of the attempted boarding action from earlier; but if there’s anything more than can be salvaged, our heroes may need to seek out help.
In ages past, the building Viktorya is staying in now was once an Energon depot. Since the end of the Great Exile, however, it’s been converted into a kind of hotel for alien tourists visiting Cybertron. The place seems comfortable enough, and a holographic sign by the front entrance proudly displays favorable reviews left by previous guests.
There is a stack of depleted energon cubes at the back of the hotel, by the waste receptacles. One of the empty metal boxes, though, lacks the grime and faded paint of the rest. Periodically, one of its panels will ripple, and a yellow robotic eye will poke out and have a look around when nobody’s watching…
Out in the hills, far from cybertronian civilization, an enormous six-wheeled vehicle sits. A massive door in its front lies open, leading into a small cargo bay in which ten cybertronians, all with black armor decorated with glowing symbols, kneel before small altars, clean ancient artifacts, or speak with their offworld brethren via transwarp communicators. These are more of the Followers of the Primes Ascendant, and this vehicle is their mobile chapel, the Anchorite. In the vehicle’s control room, another one of these cultists speaks to their leader, telling tale of what he had seen earlier in the day.
“I could scarcely believe it myself!” the Follower in question- the grey-and-purple bot seen at the Tomb of the Primes- exclaims. “At Lady Axis Prime’s command, all her predecessors came to life once more! The necropolis then lit up, as if the darkness had been dispelled by her words!”
The Adjunct Deificus, a regal-looking bot with a glowing ring laid into the top of her head like a kind of crown or tiara, leans forward in her seat, intrigued. She looks over at the other bot’s cell leader, a man she had known and trusted for some time now, for a comment.
“This is also what he told me,” the Patronica Deificus tells her. “The Matrix has been known to conjure apparitions before, in the old legends.”
The Adjunct Deificus nods, and looks back to the grey-and-purple cultist. “What happened next?” she asks him in a low rasp.
The cultist, a mere Follower de Deificus called FD-O2, shakes his head in dismay. “I don’t know,” he reports. “The Tomb’s guards escorted all visitors to the surface at Seraphicon’s command- perhaps he did not wish for these spirit’s great words to fall upon the ears of the unworthy. The group stayed down there for some time, but they returned to their ship with a renewed vigor. Some of them spoke of visiting Liege Maximo after they returned to Iacon.”
The Adjunct Deificus scoffs. “As if he would have anything useful to say,” she snorts.
“I am as perplexed as you are, Holy One,” FD-O2 says. “Regardless, it seems that Astrum is where they are going next. What shall we do?”
The Patronica Deificus looks expectantly to the Adjunct, and she leans back, resting her chin in one hand while she thinks. “I shall contact the Astrum cells,” she decides. “We know Liege Maximo is not to be trusted, even if the current Prime and her allies do not. We must thwart any attempt he makes to betray them and take this power that Lord Sentinel Prime spoke of for himself.”
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