maskormenacelogs | [Open] Run before you walk

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[Open] Run before you walk

WHO: TK-622 and you!
WHERE: Anywhere!
WHEN: During the Feywild event!
WHAT: 622's a teenager now! Please help him!
WARNINGS: None so far!

1. Tripped up (in which 622 gets hit by the anomaly, shenanigans happen)

Another anomaly to deal with. He'd been lucky for a while--none of the last few had hit him. He'd gotten lucky. Maybe for this one, he'd get lucky again, and have a real chance to help with the Aegis response.

His luck is never that good, though. Halfway through a step, everything's different. Ten or twelve years fall off his features in an instant*.

And he trips. Possibly into someone. Someone he's never seen before.

"What the--?" He was just on his way to the mess hall, wasn't he? Where is he?

*That's five or six in clone years.

2. Small steps (in which 622 would like to help you, whoever you are)

The gravity here was throwing him off. So was the atmosphere. After months of training in the 1.98 G on Carida, it felt like he was flying with every step. Too bad his back was aching like he'd taken a bad fall--his spine was starting to decompress a little. He'd probably grow another centimeter or so by the end of the day. Until then? It hurt.

Because he'd been told, by a briefing from himself. His older self. A sergeant. One with more scars, who'd been out in the galaxy, fighting for the Empire! There was a lot that wasn't being said there. In a lot of ways it was like listening to the old Republic-made clones that trained them. He kept hoping to hear more about what had happened out there, but... all he could do was piece it together.

He shut it off when the recording admonished him to leave off, that there was classified information he shouldn't know. This was an anomaly, the other-him--the sergeant--he'd said it was one of those. It sounded absolutely unbelievable. But this planet was unbelievable, wasn't it? He had no idea how he'd got here. Apparently in a week or five, he'd just remember all of a sudden. Or become the sergeant.

Better not do anything to make the sergeant pissed off, then. He should go report in to these Aegis people, see if they needed assistance. He was still a cadet, but he'd made it to Carida. That was most of the way to becoming a real Stormtrooper.

And if there's anybody along the way in need of assistance, he can help them!

3. Giant leaps (wheee!)

All right. He was starting to feel better. The dizziness was gone, as was the crunchy back. Even the fatigue from training was gone. But everything still felt ridiculously floaty. They said your muscle and bone density shot way up when you were on Carida, but wow.

He should head back to his assigned quarters. And he'll do that. But he has to put himself through his paces along the way. Burn off some energy.

See how high he could jump now.

For anyone on the street now--there's a teenager with an almost painfully sharp crew cut going on an absolute tear. It's impressively fast and athletic--until he trips again.

This time he's ready for it, flipping into a roll and right back up onto his feet in one smooth motion, coming to a stop. "Whoo!" It's a quiet exclamation, but it's said with feeling.

4. At rest (622 calls up acquaintances, looking for help. CLOSED TO CR.)

Once he reports back to his assigned quarters, it finally starts to sink in how weird this place is. And then it barely takes half an hour before it starts to feel wrong. He's not supposed to be alone, he's not built for it. And the more he thinks about that, the harder it gets to deal with it.

The sergeant had left advise about that. Look for people he'd said were reliable, try and connect with them. There'd been a whole list.

He has no idea where to start, so he just starts with whatever one he finds first in the directory.

"Cadet TK-622, requesting a response." Will this even work? They're experiencing an anomaly. The people the sergeant knew might be just as lost as he was.

But that's when regrouping was the best thing to do.

5. Wildcard (you know the drill!)

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A round of applause met 622 as he came back out of the roll, coming from a young boy in a sand stained tunic with a genuinely bright smile on his face. He was really short, to the point it was difficult to tell just how old he was.

"That was amazing!"

Knock Out's particular anomalous effect is more aggravating than harrowing, thankfully. He's been reduced to about a third of his normal size, but otherwise is intact and functioning. While this means that he can't make much use of his normally-scaled house or lab space, it's actually kind of stimulating to interact with everything human sized that he's just not been able to access before.

The comm call is unexpected, as is the person initiating it. Still, Knock Out is prompt in responding though there's some puzzlement in his tone at the identification. "Receiving, cadet."

Perhaps, not so much a person in need of help, so much as there is a young girl standing outside of Aegis headquarters giving it a considering look herself. If her height is anything to go on, she's far too young for how still she's standing and how seriously she's studying the building.

(This, supposedly, she's been told, is
where the main ruling body can be spoken with.)

622 beams, and then tries to wrestle the expression back down off his face and out of his voice.

He doesn't really succeed. "Thank you!" Thank you citizen? Do they count as citizens out here? No idea.

"It's the gravity. Coming from 1.98 Gs, this is nothing."

Thank the stars, he hadn't been sure anybody would pick up. "Sorry to disturb you," he falters for a moment before managing to scrape himself back together. He's a cadet, training to be a stormtrooper. He's tougher than this. And he already thought through what he was going to say. Just say it straight out, like a report.

"I'm experiencing an anomaly as of 0700 local time. Briefing documents indicate I've been on-planet, but I don't remember any of it." It sounds insane. The next part is going to be even worse.

"I don't understand it, but I was a sergeant then. I--" It wasn't really him, though, was it? He hoped he'd be that person eventually. But he wasn't now.

"The sergeant instructed me to reach out to beings he approved of, and you were on the list. Requesting assistance." Assistance with... everything, really. He had no idea what to do now.

Everything was almost too much to deal with, but training was helping him here. Don't look at all the people, look at the patterns. Look at where the flow of movement is being broken. Don't get distracted by the Aegis HQ building. Or the blue sky.

Eventually the mental admonishments worked, and he actually noticed the child standing there. "Can I help you, citizen?" Do they count as citizens here? He still hasn't figured that out. He wasn't even supposed to be interacting with civilians yet, but he'd adapt as the situation called for.

"Ah, I was wondering about the apparent demotion," Knock Out replied. At the moment he's in vehicle mode, which is more comfortable than trying to navigate his house, so there's the faint sound of driving in the background.

"Well, good news: most of the imPorts are experiencing anomalies presently, and memory loss seems to be a common baseline for it. That you don't remember being here is an external effect you don't have control over, not a personal failing."

Knock Out was on such a list? He thinks back to the one (only?) text conversation he'd had with TK-622, how it had started anonymous but transitioned to more personal topics. How it had touched on function and placement and how the sergeant had known Riptide.

He must have made more of an impression than he'd realized.

"What help do you need?"

"The sergeant said it's the planet that does this," he confirmed. "And that I'll remember everything in a few days or weeks." It was a relief to hear that confirmed, though. It wasn't just him.

But it was, more immediately, just him in this hab unit, and that was still deeply disturbing. But saying that to someone else, especially somebody who wasn't Imperial? The sergeant had said cybertronians seemed to understand clones, but...

He had to trust the sergeant's judgement. "I've been separated from my unit, and I'm looking to regroup with friendlies."

The planet? Well, close enough. Probably easier than explaining the Porter to someone whose memories are a blank slate when it comes to the workings of this world and the imPorts.

The military parlance is familiar, almost reassuring in a way, like sinking into a familiar set of tire treads. Knock Out has been part of many regiments in his lifetime. A medic's services always in demand ("more miles than a hot piece of shareware!" is a favourite, if vulgar, bit of troop vernacular) and he's seen units that are close as cohorts and others that are so fractured it's all their command can do to keep them from murdering each other instead of Autobots.

But whichever end of that spectrum they happened to swing, there was sodality in having others around. To be cut off from it unexpectedly, whether in one's own world or this one, was not an easy transition.

"Understandable. What is your current status?"

"Safe and in my assigned quarters." But that wasn't the point, was it. He was alone here. You were barely ever alone during training, not really. Even when in individual testing, there was almost always somebody nearby, taking the exact same test. And it wasn't that he was missing anybody in particular--they'd just started another rotation, and everybody was only just memorizing each other's numbers again. It was just the absence that was messing with him.

"Sergeant said this planet's relatively peaceful." He's still talking himself through all the reassuring stuff he knows, and yet there's a definite 'but' implied there.

"Yes. I'd describe the global political climate as 'wary but stable', for the most part. Not a cause for immediate concern. Domestically, the most upset comes from the Porters — the machines which have brought us here — since they frequently generate problems like this and imPorts are nearly always caught up in them. However the effects are usually limited to the five Porter cities and rarely extend outside these areas. It's also hit or miss as to whether things affect the native population, but usually not. The running theory is that it's to do with the nanites that all imPorts have, which the locals don't."

The click-click of a turn signal, and the sound of others vehicles nearby; Knock Out is somewhere populated. "As you mentioned, these incidents can last anywhere from a few days to a couple weeks. Typically they resolve with no lasting impediments. Incidentally, we really should have some kind of standardized announcement for this sort of thing. I'll mention it to the Aegis commanders."

But that didn't really address the previous issue of looking to regroup with friendlies, did it?

"Would you prefer an in-person recount?"

"The sergeant said that the local government can use those nanites to track us?" That obviously had been a source of concern, and he agreed. Local governments having that kind of access to Imperial assets? That just seemed wrong. Sure, the this wasn't Imperial space, but anywhere there was a trooper, the Empire was there. That was what the holos always said, anyway.

"Yes sir." There was a small mental scuffle for a moment over whether he should've said 'sir', but he was part of Aegis, right? And an Imperial commander had authorized that. And he was technically a junior agent, they'd said so at HQ when he'd gone to volunteer to help.

This was a lot to keep track of right now.

Even though he suspects it was an entirely reflexive thing, the proper address does feel good for Knock Out. And that approval definitely bleeds through in his tone when he replies, "All right. If your briefing included the coordinates to Aegis HQ, that's probably easiest. But if you prefer at your housing, I need the address."

That shouldn't come as such a relief, but it does. He'd been fine earlier today when he was around people, and when things were too busy to think through anything. But alone in an unfamiliar building, on a world that seemed impossible? He'd lost his nerve. Once the suggestion's been made, he's immediately out the door.

"On my way, sir." Yep. Definitely sticking with 'sir' now. "I already reported in this morning, once I found the instructions from the sergeant." There really was no good way to refer to that other-him, was there.

Finn reaches for his comm automatically, tense since this whole thing started. He stopped being a damn cat just that morning and was trying to help others still be affected. Now, hand hovering over his comm link, he realizes that 622 doesn't sound the same. And he said Cadet.

Dammit. He picks up. "Cadet? This is-- Finn. Do you read?" The designation is considered and pushed aside. He could give that tidbit away later. For now, it's not what he wants to be introduced as.

Luke's young face brightened happily. He didn't have the benefit of his apparently future self telling him what to expect from this place. Just a sense that he had been here before, like it was as familiar to him as the farm. But this place was nothing like the farm, and Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru were no where around. Despite that, he still felt like things would be okay, and he had a good feeling about this guy too, especially since he seemed to be like a soldier.

"You're from a planet different than this one?" he asked, beaming. "Me too!"

He holds in a sigh of relief. He got an answer. For a moment there, he'd been worried nobody was out there.

"Receiving, sir." The sergeant had said that Finn defected from... he wasn't sure what to call the First Order, apart from evil. Imposters? Some sort of weird cult? It sounded wrong, whatever it was. And Finn had been strong enough to break their conditioning and leave it.

"I'm experiencing an anomaly." Just report the facts, and hopefully somebody will know what to do with it. He'd been holding it together well until he got alone. "I don't remember this planet, but I found a message from Sergeant TK-622. He instructed me to regroup with friendlies, and your comm number was on the list."

He tries to keep his voice neutral, the way you're supposed to when you're reporting in. Whether he actually manages it? Less certain.

"Oh, I don't have a home planet like the recruits--" Or, well he did, but he had no idea what it was called, and he never actually saw it because they'd all been kept in the training halls until they got shipped out for advanced training, but,

"I'm in training on Carida. We have to adapt to whatever planet we get sent to, so they make it tough." And it works, apparently! If only the other cadets could feel this, it's amazing.

"You're not from Earth? So, you're one of the imPorts?" Maybe he was surrounded by imPorts. He had no idea.

"You don't need to have a home planet to feel at home," Luke piped up, grinning. After all, he knew he wasn't born on Tatooine, even though neither he nor his aunt and uncle knew where exactly he was born. But as much as he hated it, it was home.

His face lit up at the mention of Carida, though. He knew that planet!

"I know that!" he exclaimed. "The academy there is supposed to have a great pilot program, right?"

He very nearly bounded up to him, blue eyes bright in excitement. "You're a soldier, aren't you? Or training to be one?"

'The sergeant' seemed to be perfectly logical a choice for terminology, given the situation, and Knock Out adapted to it easily.

He had actually been on his way to the Aegis HQ himself, so it will not take him long to arrive. With his regular living quarters too unwieldy for his shrunk form, he supposed the bunks at Aegis would do quite nicely until this wore off. Thankfully whatever had affected his root form hadn't messed with his vehicle mode, so it's a normal sized car that pulls up in front of Aegis to park, albeit not exactly blending in with the retro styling of the native automobiles.

Knock Out waits until he sees TK-622 before transforming back; the sports car splits along previously invisible seams, metal shifting and realigning, reforming into a bipedal shape. The anomaly had reduced him in scale to around 1/3, putting him standing right about 7 feet tall.

"Cadet," he greets.

"You know about Carida?" That was the first time somebody had known what he was talking about all day. He'd done his best to get to work and help out at HQ, but it seemed like every fifth word he'd said hadn't entirely made sense to the people there.

"Yep. Carida trains the best," he's caught between beaming and trying to remain serious. "I'm a cadet the Stormtrooper Corps training program. Just got there a few months ago." He'd been in basic for the rest of his life before that. That was where clones started to get funneled into their specialties, or got booted into the regular army. Thank the stars he'd had good enough scores not to get stuck with that.

"You're a civvie--a civilian, I mean?" You never knew, maybe this was somebody from a different clone line he'd never seen before. "Are you going to join up?"

Luke nodded, practically beaming that what he'd heard about Carida had been true. He nodded enthusiastically at the trooper's question, practically rocking on his feet in excitement.

"Mmhmm! I'm already the best pilot on Tatooine," he said proudly, puffing out his chest slightly. "As soon as I'm old enough, I'm going to go right into the academy and fly for real."

It's later in the day by now, and the shifting light on the street makes everything feel far more alien than it did during full daylight. Even with HQ visible in the distance, he's still on guard.

So he nearly jumps straight out of his skin when one of the groundcars near HQ suddenly splits open, and--Oh wow. The sergeant had really meant it when he said 'ferrous lifeform'.

"Sir," he salutes, doing his best to ignore his racing heratbeat. Stars, the briefing didn't mention that shape-changing thing. He'd only ever seen aliens in holos during flash-training sessions, and now suddenly he was staring at something from a species he'd never heard of before the briefing this morning.

Does he look overwhelmed? Because he definitely is.

"At ease," Knock Out responds, in a manner that says he's actually used to giving that command for real, before he decides to cut the poor clone some slack.

"I don't actually outrank you here, you know," he adds sociably. "Other than the two commanders, all the Aegis members are of the same status."

A pause, and then Knock Out remarks dryly, "Are you going to need a moment? Your biometrics tell me your heart's trying to make a break for the next highway interchange."

Despite how wrong-footed this has him, he does go at ease, purely on reflex. There was a metallic alien towering over him, one that could apparently turn into a groundcar. Okay. Accept what the galaxy throws at you and keep going. Sometimes it just won't make sense, and you had to ignore that.

But a flat command structure? that made no sense. Maybe Aegis was just small enough that it only had a couple of squads? Still--"I'm only a cadet, sir." And the only thing cadets could outrank was other cadets.

"I'm fine, sir." He was thinking his way through the psych lessons they'd gotten drilled into them--fear was something your body did. It was there to keep you alive and keep your reflexes sharp. You used it as a tool, rather than let it use you.

But that had really startled him. "The briefing didn't mention you could do that... shape-changing thing."

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[Open] Run before you walk

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