[closed] 'Cause everybody's in the backroom's spinning up...

[redcosmedic]

WHO: Knock Out, Riptide, Ironfist, Minimus Ambus
WHERE: Cybertronian House, Jeopardy
WHEN: Sometime late August-ish
WHAT: DRUNKEN MECH PARTY! The Cybertronians have decided that the only reasonable way to start comparing how their universes differ is to start swapping stories. Naturally, this requires a lot of high grade to, ah, grease the wheels...
WARNINGS: Likely discussion of canon-typical violence, etc. Will update as needed.

Knock Out had been diverting a portion of energon rations to being re-refined into high grade for a few months now. Since the energon was synthetically made it had required some creative engineering and a lot of trial and error on his part to get a result that tasted halfway decent. It was no triple-distilled engex, but it was certainly better than some of the backroom swill he'd had before. Like the rest of the accumulated supplies in the mech house, he paid little attention to who used what and how much, operating on pretty standard roommate rules: replace something if you used the last of it, don't get into others' space without permission, and don't leave messes for the housemates to clean up. So far, it was working pretty well for everyone involved.

Between the arrival of their fourth, and the discussion he'd had with Ironfist at the kids' moving party, it was looking more and more like Knock Out was an outlier when it came to their variant worlds. From casual discussion with Riptide and Ironfist, he'd established that while major history points appeared to line up, there was still a lot that didn't. In addition, there were things that he couldn't explain: why their energon was differently coloured, blue versus pink, or why mechs adopting female identifications were common in one version but not in the other.

In the interests of SCIENCE, and possibly just because they were a nosy lot, the best course of action was clearly to have some candid discussions about this. But given the potential spread of topics which might arise, Knock Out (at least) was less inclined to do so while being entirely sober.

The Nevada evening was frankly, beautiful. Out behind the mech house, seating had been arranged and they were far enough from the residential part of Jeopardy that they didn't have to worry about being particularly quiet. The sunset had left streaks of purple and orange in the sky, the gentle glow of Jeopardy's neon lights swallowed up by the starlight of the rest of the desert.

—

(( OOC: Probably easier to do multiple sub threads/starters for each rather than trying to wrangle a 4-person tagging order for a single thread? ))

Comments

[redcosmedic]

EARLY EVENING;

"I will say this," Knock Out says, leaning back in his seat and gesturing with his cube toward the very pretty evening sky and the speckle of stars visible overhead. "Earth really did win the atmospheric lottery when it comes to stargazing, didn't it?"

COMBINER STORIES;

"Mm... Hook was certainly competent at what he did, he kept the Constructicons more or less in one piece — pun not intended, since we are talking about Combiners. But then when Menasor came online after Crystal City, the Constructicons and the Stunticons were usually deployed to the same fields, and two teams who took that much front line scrap was more than one person should be patching on his own, especially when half the time, he was one of the injured ones. At the end of the day, Hook was an engineer, not a medic."

Knock Out takes a sip of his high grade cube. "So I pulled the right strings and got myself assigned to be Hook's 'assistant', when in reality he tended the Constructicons and I did the Stunticons. It worked out well enough, aside from having to deal with Motormaster being... Motormaster."

DARK ENERGON STORIES;

"And then, over my explicit and strenuous objections, he decides that the reasonable thing to do is to inject the warship with dark energon. Imagine our surprise when the ship's personality core came back online — with quite an attitude, by the way — and proceeded to start zapping everyone who disagreed with its new mission with a stasis beam!" It's hard to tell which part has Knock Out more irate, the fact that he'd been ignored or the fact that the ship had a lousy demeanour.

"All I said was that since it was competently decrypting the Iacon database coordinates, perhaps we should let it continue... and it shot me! In the back! And to add insult to injury, later on I had the Autobots' humans scaling me like a piece of playground equipment!"

OTHER;

(Hit me with whatever topic for KO to talk about!)

dark energon

[knaval]

By this point, Riptide is surrounded by a solid amount of empty cubes. He laughs loudly and obnoxiously at Knock Out's recounting of the whole debacle, throwing back the remainders of his current cube.

"Oh my god, no offense," full offense, "But your Megatron sounds like a crazy idiot. Was he eating the dark energon himself?"

A beat, then he frowns to himself.

"...Okay, no, our Megatron probably would've eaten it if he could find it."

Re: dark energon

[redcosmedic]

Knock Out is definitely a couple cubes deep himself by this point, though he isn't even attempting to keep pace with Riptide. At least he'd had the foresight to make sure there was a big enough batch of high grade for this evening, because it was looking like they'd go through the whole stock by the end of it.

"Crazy perhaps," he allows gloomily. "Not an idiot. The war wouldn't still be going on if he was stupid, now would it? And no, he didn't eat it... he shoved a chunk of it into his own spark. That was before I was called back to the Nemesis, though we've all been dealing with the side effects of that little venture ever since."

[knaval]

"Ugh, stop being right. It was the same for us, as well. Well, that and his and Optimus having an obsession with fighting each other..." he mutters.

"How did he even survive that? I thought if something penetrated the spark you died."

[redcosmedic]

"That, at least, is the same," Knock Out said disdainfully, of Megatron and Optimus being obsessed with fighting one another.

"Dark energon has incredibly restorative properties," the medic explained gloomily. "It healed faster than the damage it caused, until his spark fully absorbed it. It even allowed him to survive being at ground zero of a space bridge explosion. That was probably the only reason there was anything left of his frame for me to fix... well, that and miner-grade armor, I suppose."

[knaval]

Riptide just groans in commiseration of that fact. It would be nice if it wasn't, but that's not the reality they live in.

"Figures he finds something that could've probably fixed Cybertron if he'd tossed it into the core and ends up mainlining it himself," Riptide says, equally as disdainfully. "So what happened with the ship? Did it just become as literal a part of the crew as it possibly could?"

Combiners

[fisitron_declassified]

"Oh don't get me started on Combiners." Ironfist gripes, feeding some more engex through a tube into the open port on his arm. "The Megatron of our universe was obsessed with the idea of combiners, all because of some experiment from the Golden Age that went horribly, horribly wrong." At least Ironfist assumes what Monstructor turned out to be wasn't what was intended; he's seen video of its rampage after it got busted out of Garrus-9 and only a crazy despot like Megatron (or at least Megatron as he was according to Riptide) would look at that and go "I need one."

"Took him almost four million years to get a working model, but he did it. Actually...yeah, I think it was the Constructicons to boot, too; Scrapper's crew." He unplugs the port from his arm. "Stunticons aren't ringing any bells though, but I bet Megatron tried." He puts his spare engex aside from now.

"So there's another difference for you; sounds like you've got more combiners in your universe than we do in ours." Assuming Ironfist's information was up to date, which of course it was not.

[redcosmedic]

Knock Out mulled that over, sipping from his own cube. "Yes, there are multiple combiner teams in my world, on both sides of the war," he responded. "Shockwave made three: the Combaticons first, Onslaught's team, they formed Bruticus. But Bruticus couldn't be controlled, so they were put into stasis. Then after the war started, Megatron wanted Shockwave to keep working on the project, so he created Devastator with the Constructicons, with Scrapper at the head of that team."

He frowned absently, tapping his claws on his thigh plating while he thought. "After Devastator destroyed Crystal City, Shockwave reactivated the Combaticons and used what he'd learned from Devastator to modify them to be more controllable. And when that proved... well, somewhat moreso, Megatron wanted a third team, so Shockwave commissioned the Stunticons under Motormaster, and they formed Menasor."

He gave a vague gesture at the other three. "On the Autobot side, there were two: Defensor, who came online at Tagan Heights to oppose Devastator, and Superion, who were all Aerialbots, I believe. That is what the Seeker traitors ended up calling themselves, wasn't it?"

[fisitron_declassified]

"The Combaticons I've heard about, Onslaught's team. Definitely not a combiner group though, at least not last I'd heard. Drawing a bit of a blank on these Stunticons though, so I'm not even sure we've got those guys."

Again, more shakes of his head. "Believe me, if there were Autobot combiners in my world, they'd have come out of Kimia and I'd know about them, but I'm pretty sure the Ethics Commission would have shut down any attempt to go down that line of study pretty quickly. I can't imagine Xaaron or Trailbreaker thinking that kind of thing would be okay."

After a moment, he turns to the other two attendees of this little shindig. "...Do we have combiners now? If so, how?"

[redcosmedic]

"I've never heard what branch kicked out the Autobot combiners," he said. "It may well have been Kimia, I wouldn't know."

Knock Out's gaze is focused on the cube in his hand, tilting it so that the high grade coated the sides before sliding back down. "The Stunticons were Motormaster, Drag Strip, Dead End, Wildrider and Breakdown."

[legalcy]

Arrival

[It's not a small bot that arrives, but Ultra Magnus. He transforms into root mode when he enters the building and searches for a corner where he can leave the suit behind.]

If it is alright, I can park the armor here.

Drinking

I will have regular energon, thank you.

[There is alcohol and he cannot risk overindulging in whatever drinks Knock Out managed to create.]

I do have a question - what were your methods in distilling engex? [He heard that Knock Out was a medic, not a licensed bartender. This was suspicious even if Minimus were not a lightweight.]

Stories

[He is certain there are many questions Ironfist and Knock Out have, but Minimus is not eager to indulge in personal stories. Drawing attention to his individuality was the opposite of what was needed when working under Tyrest, and he would rather share details at his own pace.

Unless he is needled enough or drunk enough, of course. But for now, he waits for questions before joining.]

drinking

[redcosmedic]

How could I have guessed you'd want regular?

[ Knock Out is lounging quite comfortably in his seat, one leg hooked over the other and swinging lightly, watching Minimus over the edge of his cube with a sly grin.

Honestly, he was still coming to terms with the whole Ultra Magnus thing. There was a part of him that steadfastly remained disbelieving. A secret like that, it seemed unlikely that it could be competently kept for as long as it had been. Perhaps this was the Ultra Magnus of their world, and not Knock Out's. Either way, he was determined not to show any of that uncertainty to Minimus' face, hence the display of nonchalance. He points at a few cubes that are set aside from the others, and of course, there's more available through the dispenser in the kitchen. There's even little flavour additive packets — at least ones Knock Out's managed to duplicate based on Earth's available elements, if Minimus is into that sort of thing. ]

Looking to put me out of business already?

[ He'll give a brief overview of the method involving things like electrostatic induction and stereoisomerism. ]

Even having seen the government's production facility and the formula they're using, it took some tinkering.

[legalcy]

If the engex is unsafe, then I would seek legal action.

[The next step is to review the existing production facility and formula. Swerve would have been a valuable resource in deciphering Knock Out's methods, but from the sounds of it, it appears to follow standard brewing methods.

He hopes his fears are unfounded.]

Is there an agenda for this gathering?

[redcosmedic]

"If it's unsafe", I'd be creating more work for myself as the only medic here, wouldn't I? I thought you were all about sound judgment.

[ Legal action, really?? Knock Out was unimpressed. ]

Loosely? We decided to compare notes and find out why my version of things doesn't line up with what you three know. Why there seem to be some fundamental differences that "whoops timelines" doesn't seem to cover.

[legalcy]

I am only seeking to protect Cybertronians from any potential source of danger. [which includes bad engex]

Shall you begin with your version of our history? I assume the others have provided some knowledge of our universe.

[redcosmedic]

Mhm. Duly noted, Commander.

Yes, but you're going to have to narrow that search parameter. Where exactly would you like me to start, Golden Age and up? Pick a topic.

stories

[knaval]

[sorry, minimus. riptide is drunk and somehow even more obnoxious than usual.]

Tell 'em about Megatron! [he calls over at the poor green 'bot.]

[legalcy]

[Minimus pauses in the middle of lifting the Energon cube. He avoids looking at Riptide directly.]

That is a long history to regale. How much do Knock Out and Ironfist know of the context?

[fisitron_declassified]

"Oh, I heard a little about this, yeah." Ironfist replies, having gotten himself another cube. "Megatron started a four million year long war of genocide and destruction on a galactic scale, razed thousands of worlds, was personally responsible for the loss of...trillions of lives, and as punishment we let him wear the Autobrand and gave him co-command of a ship to try and find a utopia for our people to live in so he'd be remembered for that instead of all the war stuff I just said, because he used a bit of legal nonsense I can only assume only worked because Optimus decided to let it slide because...he's Optimus Prime, that's just what he does. Did." He sticks the tube into his arm, a bit forcefully. Is he bitter? "Whatever."

[knaval]

Riptide throws back his cube while Ironfist recounts their history, then holds up the empty glass, "Go from the sorry, not guilty thing!"

[legalcy]

He had only recently gained Ironfist's respect. Riptide was going to make this difficult. Despite Minimus' personal...opinions on Megatron, he must attempt to provide a neutral retelling of this history.

It it rather difficult considering Ultra Magnus' importance in the decision that angered many.

"Riptide refers to Megatron's trial," he explains to Ironfist and by extension Knock Out. "I, as Ultra Magnus, acted in Megatron's defense. He initially pleaded guilty to each of the charges brought against him." Much could have been avoided if it had ended there. "Then Starscream provided his testimony. As the recently elected leader of Cybertron, he knew his words had weight among the public, so he used his time to disparage Megatron and his ability to lead the Decepticons.

"Due to this perceived insult, Megatron pleaded not guilty and took advantage of an old law of Luna-2 to bring himself aboard the Lost Light. I was assigned to keep watch over him." Another sip of Energon. Nowadays, Megatron does not care if he is disrespected (not as much as he used to), but that will not be brought up. Minimus should not explain why he knows how Megatron feels.

Stories

[fisitron_declassified]

"Hey Magnus? Uh, Minimus. Sorry, sir. Which do you prefer? Er, can I talk to you for a second?" Ironfist asks somewhat awkwardly, trying to take the smaller green robot aside. He has questions—so many questions—about the Magnus armour now that he's been all caught up on that whole situation, about its technical specs, auxiliary systems, weapon powers, how it accommodates transformation, does it just look like Ultra Magnus or is it in fact fashioned from his body, but that can wait for later. Right now he has something of a more personal request to ask. He tries to swallow down his inherent nervousness that memories of standing before the Magnus Inquiry bring up (somehow, Minimus is just as intimidating as he was in the suit).

"I was hoping you might be able to catch me up on a few things that happened...you know. After." He admits, rubbing his helmet, but always mindful of the bullet wound that remains. "Riptide's been a great help, but I think you might be better-suited to this. Uh...Verity and..." He hesitates for a moment. "Skyfall. What happened to them?" Verity's probably okay, most likely back on Earth, and Skyfall? Well, if he's got a cell to himself at G-9, Ironfist will be content with that.

He deserves worse for Babu Yar, but then again...so does Ironfist most likely.

[legalcy]

Minimus considers the first question. He’s never asked anyone to refer to him by either name in a given situation. When hiding his identity from the universe, he was Magnus. When hiding that identity from the crew, it was Ambus. Otherwise, everyone except Megatron continued to call him Magnus.

“You may call me whichever name you prefer.” He couldn’t decide if he had strong feelings on either. “Verity is well. She has found a comfortable life on Earth after several more missions with Springer.” He sipped his Energon.

“We were unable to hold a trial for Skyfall. The message you left had caused enough of an uproar in Kimia that he took his own life long before I was alerted.”

While lacking in softness, Minimus’ explanation was to the point and informative. He hoped that Ironfist would be able to handle this news...if not well, at least not poorly.

[fisitron_declassified]

Ironfist visibly relaxes, as Magnus (yep, armour or not he's Ultra Magnus, Ironfist can't really think of him any other way right now) informs him of Verity's fate. "Oh, good. That's good. And Springer's okay? I was worried after what Overlord did to him. That's..." He starts to lean back with his current cube. "That's good. I'm happy for—"

He stops suddenly as Magnus elaborates on Skyfall's ultimate fate, and his optics momentarily flash, a sign of...shock? Yes, shock. He'd intended that his posthumous confession would land Skyfall in prison as a murderer, after exposing his actions to a good portion of the Autobot forces. He'd never expected Skyfall to react...like that.

But then again, he'd never really known Skyfall at all, had he? Not until it was too late. The news that he'd done to his old and until recently only "friend" causes a swirl of conflicting emotions in Ironfist's Spark chamber, a complicated storm of shock, satisfaction, and yes, even grief and maybe even a little happiness that Skyfall had chosen the most permanent of escapes from his actions.

"Okay." He says, his voice flat and neutral. "Thanks for letting me know. We should get back to it." He motions to the rest of the little party.

[legalcy]

There is little Minimus can add to that. Ironfist knows what had happened to Verity and Skyfall, and it's up to him to decide what to do with that information. Nothing could be said of his former friend.

However, that was not true of the human.

"Verity was deeply affected by your death. In the short time you were working together, she had grown affectionate." Even when surrounded by death, the loss of a dear friend hurt terribly. She had written a tale of the Garrus-9 mission after she returned, and Minimus wonders if that was inspired by the stories distributed to the fans of Wreckers Declassified.

"I have good reason to believe that she was influenced by your actions in more recent years."