(no subject)

[screenplays]

WHO: THUNDERCRACKER and YOU
WHERE: Outskirts of Heropa
WHEN: April 9th, midday onwards
WHAT: Giant robot attempting to get away from everyone and become a giant metal hobo with an internet connection
WARNINGS: None, will be edited if anything comes up


[ Thundercracker doesn't waste a second - the moment he's cleared to leave he does - one step before he's transforming and leaving whatever town he'd been escorted to behind him. Heropa? Something like that - it didn't matter because he doesn't plan on staying close to it. He just wants-- he wants space and time and to get away from everyone.

At least none of the humans here seemed to want to shoot him on sight. Or disassemble him, which was an improvement over the Earth Thundercracker was used to dealing with. Maybe he could get the government here to agree to the deal he had with the US government back home. Maybe get a dog, even if none could replace Buster in his spark.

He finds what he's looking for a short distance outside of town - an abandoned but still standing building of appropriate size to hide a jet. Or a giant robot. Transforming and landing, Thundercracker spends the rest of the day either fixing up the building so it doesn't collapse on him or in it with the doors wide open - scrolling through the communication device to see what he can and can't do with it.

More importantly, he hasn't been paying attention to his surroundings - it's relatively easy to sneak up on him, if someone wanted to harass roughly twenty two feet of metal. It wasn't as if he'd been particularly subtle about his departure or arrival. ]

Comments

[reptiledysfunction]

[One of the downsides of being an assistant research biologist is that sometimes you need to be the one to pick up the testing supplies in case of an emergency. And unfortunately, the nearest supply store that actually carries the right sort test tubes and can he pick up a box for them to use until the bulk order comes in, thanks Connors you're the best.

As he waits for the bus, messenger bag stuffed with a box of test tubes slung over his shoulder, something catches his eye. That...is a giant robot. Cleaning. About a block away from him.

The bus could wait for the moment.

Eventually, Connors made his way to the giant robot.] I take it you're an imPort as well.

[It said a lot about him that he was pretty much unphased by a giant robot. He had only been in Heropa about a month or so, but drinking chocolate milk with the god of mischief and talking to the Boogeyman kind of lowered his standard for 'weird.']

New in town?

[screenplays]

( He doesn't respond right away, or even bother looking at whoever trying to talk to him. Thundeecracker is more focused on pulling the door from the railings that allow it to slide into place - rust has made it impossible to actually shut, so he's going to need to do something about that if he wants any privacy at all.

After tearing the door away, he finally gives the human a once over. Fairly standard for a human, he thinks, and not someone who looks like he's about to offer Thundercracker what he wants in exchange for something. )

Look. ( Thundercracker turns back to his work, setting the door to the side. ) I don't want any trouble.

( It's easiest, he's found, to make his desires clear from the start and not bother with 'small talk'. Maybe he'll be lucky and one of the humans will actually respect the wishes of a large, mechanical being who is more than capable of wiping a city off the map.

Not like he would, but people tend to hold New York against him. )

[reptiledysfunction]

Do I look like someone who would cause trouble? [Connors asked, with a small little laugh. He's a one-armed man wearing a lab-coat who looks like he hasn't had that much sleep. Even if he turned into the Lizard, he was fairly certain the robot could destroy him in an instant. He wasn't going to cause any trouble.]

I was just curious. You're the first...ah, giant robot I've seen here. I just wanted to stop by to say hello.

[Was it offensive to call him a giant robot? Connors had no idea--file that question away for later.]

[screenplays]

[ That gets a shrug, but then when he says 'giant robot' instead of their species, he gives the human another look. ]

Cybertronian. [ He's not going to hold a conversation, he's not. He just wants to be left alone. However dim that possibility is looking now. ] There's nothing artificial about my intelligence.

[ He is, apparently, going to hold a conversation long enough to correct him on this matter. He's seen plenty of science fiction shows to know what humanity thinks robots are, and that's enough for him to insist upon the difference. ]

[reptiledysfunction]

[Now that remark causes Connors to frown slightly, obviously confused. Cybertronian? So was that the name of his planet? Cybertron? How...apt that a giant robot would come from Cybertron.]

I didn't mean to offend you, [Connors quickly retorts, partly covering his bases.] I've just never met, ah, a Cybertronian before.

[viced]

[ There were things one couldn't ignore.

There were things that normal people could see and hear, and giant robots were difficult to ignore, at least from the half-audible squeals of either surprise or delight, some even terrified, plenty gushing and talking about it. People were funny that way, where they were definitely going to notice and talk about something out of the ordinary.

Just because there were imports didn't mean there could be somethings that weren't normal.

That being said, some people saw -- or heard more than others. It was like a self-contained symphony, the metal body, a million voices and processes and everything in between, joints and hinges, everything had a voice, and then each voice came together as a whole, something gathered and large, like millions of voices that spoke individually, but all said the same thing at the end of the day.

The pieces could speak, or the whole.

It was like looking at a goddamn headache -- listening to a goddamn headache -- but he was used to it. He'd met giant robots before, after all.

Approaching, for most people, was probably not the brightest idea. For the former Mayor of the New York City cum Vice President cum Mayor of the City, this was probably something that his former bodyguard would have his head for, but he couldn't help but approach.

Sounds like this, after all, weren't easily ignored, and when he spoke, he didn't speak like humans did. This wasn't the kind of language that humans would really get. ]

HELLO.

[ It was simple, but it was a greeting, like a handshake procedure, something sweet and inherently familiar, a voice that spoke like a machine did. ]

[screenplays]

[ Thundercracker's first response is to stop cold. It's not like anything he's heard before - on Earth, on Cybertron, in the universe. He understands it, not like he does spoke words, but as something else. As if he's spoken it since the day he was constructed cold along with Starscream and Skywarp.

Humanity fascinates him. He doesn't get them as a species, not really, but he knows what to expect from them and Earth. This? Completely out of left field.

He turns, and for the first time since his arrival on Earth, on any Earth, turns his full attention on the human standing before him. Crouching down on one knee, red eyes unblinking and trained on the organic, Thundercracker frowns. ]

What are you?

[ Even if he's curious he doesn't have to be polite. He also has a sneaking suspicious he could have answered in a way that didn't use words, and maybe he did - an answering chorus of hello before he even registered what was happening. ]

[viced]

[ It was like being blindsided by a goddamn train, or maybe an entire orchestra, sound hitting him so hard he had to blink several times just to clear his head, at the full force of all the sound in his ears. It'd been a while, since he'd spoken to a Cybertronian like this, but he knew what to expect. That made it slightly easier to handle.

He only looked at the robot, head tipped up, but there was a tilt to his head, as if he were showing the robot clearly -- very clearly -- exactly what he needed. He wasn't human, not really. Oh, he was in a way, but the line of circuits said otherwise. The line of them was all that was left after the accident that had left him closer to a machine than a person. ]

HUMAN. YOU'RE A CYBERTRONIAN, AREN'T YOU?

[ Well, mostly human. He'd been born human, at least. Perhaps there was something to be said for the fact that he didn't know anymore. He held his hands to his hips, and kept looking the machine over. He didn't know this one, nothing about it was familiar. He'd met a few, but that of course didn't guarantee that they would know the ones that he'd met. It would likely be rude to ask. ]

AROUND HERE, WE ASK WHAT YOUR NAME IS.

[screenplays]

[ The change is almost instantaneous at the mention of his species. Gone is the focus, replaced by a guarded and suspicious look, physically pulling back away from him. Humans who know his species only want two things - to kill them or to get something from them. And Thundercracker doesn't want to be bothered with either of them. Circuits on his face and all. _{Which he was curious about, but not curious enough to risk getting killed.} ]

I know that. [ Names are for people who want to be known, and right now he's not certain he wants to be. ] What do you want?

[ If one looked closely and knew what faction badge they were looking for, it's possible to pick out the brighter paint spots on his wings in the shape of the Decepticon symbol. As if someone had recently pulled it off and not enough time had passed to fade the uncovered paint to the surrounding shade. ]

[viced]

[ He drank in the sight of the machine, but the factions didn't mean much to Hundred, who'd heard of them, but that was it. For all he knew, they were closer to Republicans and Democrats, in their rivalry, than anything else. He could pick out the place where his wing was discolored, but that was it. He just noticed it, and moved on.

Well, moved on meant he looked it straight in the eye -- up at him -- and he shrugged. ]

IT'S KIND OF HARD TO IGNORE A GIANT FUCKING ROBOT. I THOUGHT I'D SEE WHAT THE FUSS WAS ABOUT.

[ Introduce himself, said his voice, the layers and layers of signals speaking a sweet song that machines knew inherently in all the right ways. The power of suggestion, but only just that, more like a caress, or the sound of a creator or a thread of something warm and familiar. Like that kind of voice that was pleasant, that spoke in a way that leveled and sang in a way that machines almost didn't know they could sing.

The signals buried, but inherent. ]

YOU CAN CALL ME HUNDRED. [ As if machines didn't already know, but it was always 100 with them, or engineer, or any number of names that they came up with. ]

[paintjobs]

He's heard the rumors. Oh, he's definitely heard them, considering that he'd been on the lookout specifically for something like this. Something large, metal, and living, just like Knock Out should be. Should be. It annoys him to no end that he has to drive a car out in the direction humans had indicated, rather than just drive out there himself, but so be it.

This should at least prove interesting. (And he's heard rumors that it flies, too — Starscream, maybe?)

A car pulls up outside Thundercracker's building of choice around noon, and a man in a red and black suit with wide, black glasses steps out. This could, he knows, get him killed — but he's banking on looking important enough that whoever it is decides to at least hear him out first.

[screenplays]

It's the sound of the engine that makes Thundercracker pause. None of the humans who'd come to bother him so far have had cars and there's a part of him that waits for the sound of a transformation sequence that-- never comes. An organic then, and he walks out from behind the building to give his new visitor a once-over.

Well he certainly looks important. The suit's too flashy for government if he remembers from his shows correctly. They like the plain suits in blacks and grays. Nothing so flashy as whatever the human is wearing.

Crossing his arms and scowling down at Knock Out, he is the perfect picture of unimpressed.

"Whatever it is, I don't care."

Bumblebee got him because Bumblebee knew the right things to say. Starscream? He tried and failed. Nearly got him killed, turns out his 'brother' had the same amount of famed loyalty towards him that he did Megatron.

[paintjobs]

Well, this is going well already. (At least he hasn't been attacked yet.) Knock Out looks over the seeker carefully from behind those broad sunglasses, taking careful note of the frame, the coloration — the lack of a badge. Interesting. Finally, he smiles.

"Are you sure? That seems... overly hasty." It isn't English coming out — though it isn't quite as Cybertronian as he'd hoped. It's Cybertronian from a human throat, which changes the sound somewhat... but he decides it's still understandable, at least, and widens his smile. "Welcome to the neighborhood."

[screenplays]

That's certainly interesting, and his optics narrow. Holoform? Maybe, he thinks, giving the car another look. Not that it matters. Thundercracker is possibly even more reluctant to deal with another Cybertronian than he is the humans that have bothered him so far.

"Nope. Still don't care." A pause, and he shifts - going back to trying to get one of the metal walls of the building to stop looking like it was going to buckle under the weight of the roof. "I think I care less, actually."

Shoot him in the face if you want, it won't be something he hasn't dealt with.

[paintjobs]

...That's not the reaction his big reveal was supposed to have. Knock Out scowls, but hurries forward. If he hasn't been irreverently killed already, it's probably not likely to happen, so he feels safe enough in it.

"Would you just — hear me out?" English again. He'd made his point, there's no need to keep butchering their language. He ducks around to stand where he can at least see the seeker's face. "You're trapped on a planet and all but buried in humans, that doesn't make you want to seek out a little similar company?"

[notdaredevil]

[Twenty-two feet of metal's not so intimidating as it might have been, once upon a time. There's people like Doc Ock and the Rhino running around all the time, although they're more Spidey's problems then anyone else's, and Stilt-Man just keeps getting taller and taller. Why, Matt's completely unclear, since it doesn't seem to help him get any better at his villainy, but anyone who straps giant stilts to his feet is bound to be somewhat off anyway.

So when he picks up the sound of that much machinery, something that's registering just as complex and big and powerful and loud (to him) as any metal suit any supervillain has ever pulled together, he feels duty-bound to go checking it out. But he can't quite...parse what it is. Something about the power source, the particular frequency and modulations of the sounds of the internal workings, registers differently from anything he's ever come across before. And if there's one part of Matt that's always been healthy, it's his curiosity.

Reaching the building and the being in question doesn't make the situation any clearer.]

What the hell...?

[He doesn't even bother to sneak up, as though he could in his bright superhero costume. There's absolutely nothing in the situation that suggests that there is any kind of criminal behavior or even a certain type of suspicious loitering going on. He's not...exactly sure...what's going on.}

[screenplays]

[ Okay, Thundercracker is officially done with people bothering him. It has happened repeatedly and he does not like it at all. All he wants is peace and quiet and a TV. That shouldn't be so hard, and yet--

He rounds on the newest interloper, optics narrowing into narrow slits. ]

Doesn't your species know how to tell when someone wants to be left alone?

[ What are you, blind? Well, with that outfit, Thundercracker wouldn't be surprised. ]

I can't work my computer and accidentally closed this like 5 times trying to reply

[notdaredevil]

[Well, you know...people with bright red lenses in their mask...probably don't need to see all that well anyway...]

I'm going to say...probably not. [What the hell. What. The. Hell. Is this thing? What's this about his species? Is this an alien? ...is it in like a giant robotic suit?] It's one of our many charms.

GOOD JOB

[screenplays]

( Nope, Matt. It is 100% completely alive machinery, no tiny person inside. He's not Ultra Magnus. )

No it's not.

( He's watched enough TV to be able to list your charms and that is not one of them. )

[notdaredevil]

[Well...that's not really much of a change from the Vision, probably. But in no circumstance has the Vision ever been so big.

Thank god that Matt recovers quickly.]

Of course it is. Depending on your point of view, and what you're looking for in a human being.

[Thundercracker didn't you know pop culture isn't necessarily an accurate portrait of human culture.]

[pyms]

[ There's been a flurry of activity from his ant-comms. Too much buzz to make out what it is, but it's a big enough buzz to make it a commotion. He can tell the ants were... Excited? Alarmed? Either way, something had their legs moving faster than normal.

And Hank, on most days, ignores this. Flip the comms to a different frequency and it's done. But he's been working in the ant domes, communicating with new Larry and new Moe and Joe the Third gets increasing difficult when all the ants want to do is go check out this new thing that's making all this commotion. He gives in, finally, and follows them to the point of their focus.

At first he doesn't see anything. Just an abandoned building. He entertained the thought of using that himself when there it is. There's the giant robot that has everyone's attention. It's not like Danger or Ultron or Vision; less anthropomorphic. This was straight up Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots, and Hank climbs out of the ant hole and regrows to size.

He stares for a long time, just watching the movement and joints, looking for a power source. He's still gawking when his a part of his brain tells him to speak up, though the rest of it hasn't caught up yet. ]

Hello.

[screenplays]

Whatever it is you have to say, I'm not interested and I don't care.

[ Not even bothering to look at the speaker because he is SO DONE with everyone and everything trying to have a conversation with him. ]

[pyms]

[ When he was fifteen, his dad said the exact same thing. But that kind of comment wasn't unusual from his father. From a giant robot? Damn.

So what if he didn't say anything and just continued to stared, not for the lack of wanting to but he trying very hard to look for familiar circuitry — Doom's, Ultron's, Reed's. Anything. Because he doesn't want to get too excited at the idea of a giant robot that is also from an alien race. ]

[screenplays]

[ After about fifteen minutes or so and the human not leaving, Thundercracker finally stops and just... turns a single optic on the other. ]

What do you want?

[pyms]

[ Hang on to your belt, Hank old boy. This is a giant robot you're talking to all of a sudden, an angry one at that. His internal monolog gets cut off when he starts at a blank but he closed his mouth. That's a start? ]

Well.

[ Yes, a couple more words and he's got a sentence! ]

Nothing, really. I'm just flabbergasted. I mean, you're a giant robot.