Glad that Kitai had decided to change the topic, Aralysa replied,
“I’ve got to show Stonefist here around Iacon, because he hasn’t been here for quite some time.” The rocky bot nods, about to say nothing, but then he changed his mind.
“Yeah. We’ve already gone to the Hall of Records, er, we tried to at least, but after the attack we went to the Primal Basilica. There sure were some interesting things in there to say the least.”
Aralysa smiles at the gray-armored bot, and then continues.
“Anyways I’d like to get back to that, so why don’t we head to the Salvation area?” With that, Aralysa and Stonefist bid goodbye to Kitai and head for that part of the museum. A quick glance reveals that some other bots are already there, so Stonefist grunts and Aralysa says,
“Hello! Are you here to see the Salvation exhibit too?”
“Yeah.” Dark says, sitting on Firestorm’s transtector’s shoulder as he gives them a cheerful wave.
“Who sent you?”
XM-333 turned back towards the combiner, watching him carefully.
“Sure. I could use anything to take my mind of of today’s stresses.”
Axis replied.
Nova chuckled nervously.
“Uh, no one that I’m aware of.”
Niko was captivated by the gallery of different faces. Each one with their own story to tell, and each one with such different designs. Though he couldn’t help but focus his attention on the absolute behemoth among them. He went over to the section labeled Fortress.
Seraphicon pulls up the pictures: the tomb was loaded with traps, makes sense due to the Twilit Saber’s power. There were carvings and reliefs talking about the Salvation and it’s journey.
One image was of a massive circular door with the Angelicon insignia crudely drawn on it. The next image was of the chamber they found Shadowraker in, the glyphs honoring her.
The last set was of Zepar’s burial chamber. The large sarcophagus was opened to show the Twilit Angel rising with the Twilight Saber. The journal was on a small desk-like alcove to the side.
Zip and Cargo
Cargo nods to the bot solemnly. “Indeed.”
Zip pokes his partner’s shoulder. “Cargo! It’s the guy from Nemo!”
Graves
Graves grunts and exits out of his mech for a second. He steps forwards to the knight statue and kneels in front of its helmet, muttering something quietly.
“Well, it’s not like anyone’s counting,” the shopkeep says.
“We weren’t getting paid enough to ask questions,” the combiner says. “Whoever hired us kept their identity a secret, they were offering more money than I’ve seen in my lives to steal that journal and giving us enough guns to outfit a battalion to get it. Shoulda known it was too good to be true.”
Fortress’s section consists of a few schematics displayed on screens, along with a massive rail cannon held within a glass case.
Fortress was a sentient weapons platform built by the Autobots to assist light infantry battalions. He was assigned to Salvation and activated late into her voyage, taking part in several battles against the warlord Bludgeon’s separatist Decepticon fleet. After the Great War, Fortress and others like him in the Autobot ranks were “decommissioned” and left to enjoy civilian life.
Further back in the museum’s Great War section is a row of stasis pods held together in an exhibit, along with holographic schematics of a Decepticon starship of some kind, and the preserved remains of an insecticon drone.
“Hey look it’s Dark Firestorm!” Aralysa replied excitedly. “If he’s here, than the other one can’t be far behind!” Stonefist grunted softly and stared.
“Who’s that again?” the rocky bot rumbled, confused. Aralysa sighed, and then continued.
“Remember before we went into Maccadam’s, you saw a gold bot and asked why he was so popular? I said I could introduce you to him, and here’s his dark counterpart!”
The Hecatan bot’s explanation didn’t seem to do much for Stonefist, but he nodded anyway and said nodded to Dark Firestorm.
“Hello.”
“Well, we are one and the same.” Firestorm and Dark say in perfect unison.
Aralysa gave a small squeak of delight as both bots spoke. Stonefist gave her a strange look, but by then the purple and blue transformer had recomposed herself. Shrugging, the rocky Cybertronian then asks the two Firestorms,
“How exactly does that work?”
“Dark was split from my Spark by Ramjet but the split wasn’t finished when Optimus opened the Matrix.” Firestorm said.
“Yeah,” Dark says, “I was a sort of Dark Spark and we got stuck outside time and space and we fought then negotiated a ‘roommate agreement’ of sorts.”
“After we got back and Unicron was destroyed for good by Axis Prime,” Firestorm says, “Primus severed the connection between Dark and Unicron and now he’s here to stay.”
“That sounds…convoluted.” Stonefist replied, clearly a bit confused on the logistics of the thing. Then his perplexed expression shifted into a smile. “Well anyways it’s nice to meet you.” He offered his rocky hand out to the pair. Stonefist’s companion Aralysa smiled and did the same, mirroring his actions.
The Transtector shakes their hands as Firestorm unplugs from the neck socket and transforms to his robot mode.
“Yeah, we’re a little guy.” He chuckles.
When shaking the two’s hands, Aralysa is clearly very excited about the prospect, but Stonefist grunts and she composes herself. Then the rocky bot spoke up.
“Well it was nice to meet you two, but anyways I think we should be getting to some actual exhibits. Right, Aralysa?”
“Huh? Oh, right.” The gray-armored transformer snapped her out of her stupor, and after glancing across the room she saw a section about the Great War which appeared to contain the remnants of an Insecticon. “That looks cool.” she said, pointing to it. “Let’s head there.” With that, the two Cybertronians walked towards the exhibit.
“Have fun.” Firestorm calls as they part.
Tokamak gives a simple nod and walks off in the direction of the Burthov shipyard.
“At least he got what he deserved,” Roaster muttered before hearing the commotion nearby.
“How often does that happen?” She asked Firestorm as an unusual pair of bots continued to tour elsewhere.
“Folks saying hi?” Firestorm asks, transforming back to his head mode and attaching to the Transtector, “fairly often but most folks just wave hello or just say hi in passing.” He says.
The insecticon remains are kept underneath a transparent display case, with holographic text hovering around it that details a great many modifications that had been made to the creature’s body. The remains of an artillery cannon rise from the drone’s back.
The starship schematics show that the vessel in question had vast interior spaces, and no command deck- in fact, it seems as though this ship was supposed to be almost entirely automated. Nearby, the stasis pods are marked with the insignia of the Decepticon Empire; they are bulbous in design, with no visors or openings through which their contents could be seen.
An informative text reads as follows:
The Decepticons built three starships that were meant to carry hives of augmented insecticons to alien planets, which the insecticons would then colonize and transform into fortress-worlds for the Empire. These enormous vessels were kept in Crystal City, and fortunately two of them were destroyed in the disaster that created the Sea of Rust. The third was launched before the accident, but it was destroyed by the Autobots using a foldspace weapon as it was crossing the heliopause. These artifacts have been only recently discovered as part of the ongoing efforts to rebuild Crystal City. Our archeomachinists have determined that, while these stasis pods may look intact, they have been nonfunctional for millions of years. There is nothing alive inside of them.
(@keiththelegokid) Unbeknownst to all, however, one stasis pod had miraculously remained functional through the ages, keeping its occupant alive, if barely. By a stroke of happenstance, this is the moment that the pod’s mechanisms begin to fail, waking its occupant from her slumber.
“That’s a bit more than a ‘hi.’ Most don’t squeal.” Roaster clarified. “I mean freaking out over you just existing near them.”
Firestorm shrugs,”Rude as it sounds, I’m used to it.” He says.
“Being a celebrity is fun but all that attention can get annoying.” Dark adds, “but folks are decent enough to not go total fangirl/boy mode.”