“If you insist Codex, It’s a pleasure to meet you.” he paused for a moment, before continuing on. “So, about Sentinel prime. I’m sure you’re aware there was an attempt to steal his journal recently?”
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Roaster’s eyes narrow, props an arm in much of Thinker pose against her face, and just looks at the EMT. A second later, her other arm is rummaging around, trying to find where she last placed those things, before pulling out whatever the Cybertronian equivalent would be for a passport and her cold construction certification. She gives them for the EMTs to inspect.
Depending on how much time has passed, Tokamak has at least gotten the surviving drone full restored and one new drone built. Working on another, when she eventually comes around his area, he doesn’t notice. At least not at first, distracted between building and his internal arguments. He was pretty certain these parts weren’t from another person - hopefully.
Though when he does notice and sees a little image of himself, he’s uncertain what they could want with him. Couldn’t have been about the terrorist attack, the other officer said they were done with him. Maybe it was chase with Conjoint? That was risky and a public disturbance. Or was it…
Looking at the parts, Tokamak looks back towards the officer. This time, he notices that Conjoint is also in the image. Great! Then the parts are good!
Wait.
Drat, that probably means he is in trouble for chasing Conjoint. This is why things are left to the proper authorities on other worlds. With a sigh, Tokamak stands up and waves over to the officer.
“Hello officer! Are you looking for me? How can I help?”
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Conjoint was, by now, back into civilization and wiggling the fingers on his new arm.
The walk to the shipyard had been over an hour, and Conjoint was counting the minutes on the return trip alone. Two hours and twenty minutes, with some little time taken for going down the biggest hills he could find, to head there and back. Add another twenty of Tokamak going down a rabbit hole of ship modification, and there was only another two and a half hours left.
The most important leg of time, in Conjoint’s opinion, because even though the arm was attached, the energon was pumping through at a proper rate, and the nerves were almost fully rewired, the transformation matrix had not yet been synced - So he could not yet play with his new fun toy. Resizing all this piping is always a chore, but, Conjoint mused as he observed the bulkiness of the new arm and compared the size of his fresh hand to his old one, It’s totally worth it. You’d have to go through SO much surgery if you were being outfitted with something like this, but I can do all that on my own with the equipment in my own system. Take that, medical establishment!
Conjoint screeched to a halt, realizing with some surprise he had ended up at the exact same info terminal he had left with Tokamak. Well, I may as well do some searching on this thing… Maybe someone has coverage of the attack. Ooh! Maybe I’m famous! Maybe the whole world knows about my endeavors! Maybe everyone knows what I look… like…
Conjoint had approached the terminal, but was now standing with his shoulders drawn and his neck sunk back, casting worried glances in every direction. I think I need to hide.
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“Huh.” Kitai continues to fly towards Kaon.
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“Makes sense. Hold on, lemme find it.” Aralysa replied, searching in her bag for the desired object. After a few more moments of rummaging, her hand emerged with her certificates. The Hecatan bot smiles and hands them to the EMT.
“Here.”
Stonefist notices the Iacon policemen navigating his way through the crowd and looks up from the museum document he was reading.
“Better see what this guy is up to.” the rocky bot muttered to himself. Stonefist then started heading towards the approaching transformer.
“Oh yes,” Codex says, “Half the city heard the explosions and gunfire, I imagine. All that just to steal Sentinel Prime’s journal… surely the thieves would have had more success if they didn’t draw so much attention to themselves, right?. Fortunately for us, though, they seemed to have a flair for the dramatic.”
The EMTs look over the material, and upon judging them to be legitimate, they return them to Roaster and Aralysa.
“We’re honored to have you with us,” one says. “None of us have much experience with Decepticon technology, so we’ll take any help you can give us.”
“Stonefist!”
Watchdog shoulders his way through a pair of visitors, apologizing to them both as he approaches the rocky bot.
“You are Stonefist, right? You and the others aren’t in trouble, don’t worry. I just need to talk with you about the attack.”
If Conjoint reads the news, he discovers that the authorities are interested in tracking down the various individuals who defeated the terrorists at the Hall of Records. The Iacon Police take great care to assure any of those individuals who may be reading that they are not in any trouble; the department only wishes to bring them together for questioning.
“First things first: I’m Overclock, Iacon PD,” the officer says, her holo-emitter changing to now display her badge and identification code. “Would you please come back to Iacon with me, Tokamak? We’re trying to talk to everyone who was involved in the attack. I hope you can understand.”
Below Kitai, the grey truck increases its speed and swerves to the left. Perhaps it thinks that Kitai is following it…
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“Indeed, but they were closer than you think. Luckily there were a few capable of combat in the library at the time. Currently I’m trying to establish the motive, so i’m trying to get an idea of the contents and what they could mean. Currently, I’m on the hunt for legends or stories about Sentinel that might give them some motives for wanting an artifact of his.”
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I’m dead.
I’m so dead.
Conjoint had bit the bullet and decided to research exactly what the news had to say about the incident. Now he could feel his knees beginning to give.
I go to the police and I guarantee the very first thing they’ll do is crosscheck me with other systems, and then - then I’ll have all of Iacon ready to send me off to Paradon to get skinned alive for skipping the bill. Conjoint clutched at his throat. If I don’t, I either do a successful job of dodging the authorities or I get caught and a massive chase ensues with them DEFINITELY shipping me back to Paradon.
His eyes traveled around to see if there was any option to traverse to the lower layers - no, the lowest possible layer of Iacon in order to hide in the dark. If I’m found, I’ll have to go with them and pretend to be unaware. I can’t risk another chase with how badly I botched the first one.
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Roaster puts her IDs away.
“Butchering,” Roaster corrects them. “What they’ve done to Headbite here isn’t technology, it’s a butchering. That’s all they ever did, no respect for Primus’ design or intention. I’ve seen trash handled with more care than something this precious.”
Wait, really? This isn’t about…but why?
“Sure thing, but I thought,” Tokamak let out a quick expulsion of air. “Alright, just give me a quick moment to collect my things and I’ll be with you right away.”
As soon as that sentence was completed, Tokamak packed up his parts and drones, waiting for Overclock to lead him.
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Heabite blinked, “Oh, well um…um,” she glanced at Roaster then back at everyone else not quite knowing how to process that, of course being a very loyal Decepticon all of twenty minutes ago…until she was told they were no longer…a thing.
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Roaster turns towards Headbite when the crawler spoke. She gave Headbite a concerning look, eyes never shifting from insecticon.
“Do you, not know what they did to you? Do you even know what condition you’re in?”
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Kitai ignores the motion,and keeps on going towards Kaon.
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Aralysa smiles as she takes her ID back.
“Well I’m not that experienced with it either, but let’s not let that stop us, eh?” Aralysa jokes, trying to bring a little humor in to lighten the situation as the ambulance flew onwards.
“Hmm? Yes, I am Stonefist. Though I’d say it’s a bit hard to mistake me with someone else.” the rocky bot replies bluntly. He looks Watchdog over, then continues.
“Yes, I was involved with the battle. Ask away.”
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“They made me, me,” she quirked her head to the side, “It’s not too bad I think, think,” she said with a small shrug, “Given life, given instructions…”
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“Not quite. They couldn’t make life, only mutate existing ones. You were something else before this, not too different, but their changes were quick and cheap.” Roaster tells Headbite.
She looks to see if there’s something in the vehicle that could project a screen to show Headbite her condition.
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“Maybe they were supplied by whoever hired him?” It was a stretch, maybe, but it could be something to work off of. “Did any of the others have sudden and mysterious upgrades?”
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“Are you working with the police, then?” Codex inquires. “A detective, perhaps?”
All of Iacon was freely traversable- it wasn’t as if the city had been put on lockdown, or anything so dramatic. The lowest layer of the city was about a few hundred feet above the energon lake at the bottom of the sinkhole.
The EMTs had already input the results of their scans into the shuttle’s computers, and a holo-emitter displays those scans on the far wall.
“We have old medical data from the war that we can pull up for reference,” one of the EMTs tells Aralysa. “Its twenty million years old and probably hasn’t been touched in about the same time, but it’s better than going in blind.”
“Not here.” Watchdog shakes his head. “If it’s alright, I’d like to take you and the others back to the station for questioning.”
“Yeah. You know their leader, the guy with the drones? Turns out he was a Bellatoran defector,” Hotfoot tells Snowblind. "He didn’t have those drones when he was in the military, so he must’ve picked them up after he went rogue.
“I’ll send you everything I have on these guys so you can read 'em on your own time,” he says. “I’ll keep digging to see if I can find mo- Oh, that’s interesting…”
Something seems to have caught Hotfoot’s attention, and he falls silent.
“We saw you chasing that other bot through the streets, but you left for Burthov before we could get to you,” Overclock says. “Do you have any idea where that guy is now? We’d like to get all of you together for questioning.”
The journey to Kaon will take longer than initially thought. To save on time, Kitai stops at a small town and takes a shuttle the rest of the way. The flight takes several hours, but even that is much faster than it would have been if Kitai had flown across Cybertron on his own.
Kaon lacks the Golden Age glamor of Iacon, but it is still a beautiful city in its own right. Unlike Iacon, the city rises into the sky, as opposed to boring into the ground. It first level, built on the surface, is laid out in a circle and ringed by a low wall. Its buildings are made from black, purple, and green materials, and the roadways are gilded in silver. Above this half of the city, an enormous disk hovers, with a great hole in its center and long slats radiating out from it to allow sunlight to shine through. Skyscrappers and monuments stud both sides of the disk, and its rim is encrusted with ports and hangars. While night falls over Iacon, the sun is rising on this part of Cybertron, spilling through the ground layer of Kaon and washing over the hovering disk.
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Surprised, she just listens in silence for a second. “Okay, I was just throwing ideas out there,” she mutters, “I didn’t expect-” Silence hangs in the air.
“Is that a lead I hear?”
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“Hmmm. That might prove to be useful.” Aralysa replies as she thinks for a moment. Then the purple and blue-armored bot continues.
“Could I see it, if possible?”
“I’ll come with. How many others are you looking for?” Stonefist asks the policeman.
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Roaster doesn’t even ask, already pressing buttons to pull up the schematics for Headbite’s design style and a modern version for comparison. Leaving Headbite’s current design and scan results in the middle, with the closest original model to its right and the a modern on to the left.
“See, this is you now.” Roaster says to Headbite and points to various sections as she speaks. “Parts too hollow here, conflict in connection here, techno-organic conflict here - this is more than just being low in Energon and stasis degradation. So what we need to do is remold this, re-forge that, make better connections here…”
Roaster goes on a bit, explaining how she’s going to rebuild Headbite. Something to better integrate the current parts and weapons and make her more cohesive. Should lessen the chance of CNA damage and mutation.
“Getting your current form working properly is the main goal, but if you want, we can do more. I can bring you closer to the original design, or update you to current trends if Primus allows.”
Pretty sure I told everything I know already.
“Not certain. He came here with me, but we split up awhile ago. I can take you where I saw him last, maybe he didn’t go too far.” Tokamak says.
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