AnonymousEject wrinkles his nose in distaste. “Honestly, I’d rather skip this one. The less I say about Overlord the better, anonymous. Braver’s devoted to that mech for reasons I don’t understand. He’s completely submissive, and Overlord has apparently already taken advantage of that. I ain’t even going to pretend to dignify what’s goin’ between them with the name ‘relationship.’”
AnonymousEject grins. “You mean his brain-form, right?” He rather likes Braver, so this one won’t be too hard, he thinks.
Braver is real dutiful, so he’d probably take it on himself to try and do all the cookin’, but I’d help him out!
Once again, I think that he’d try and do most of that stuff on his own, but I’d pitch in, too.
We’d just have a lot of clopsfish. (laughs)
Me, I think.
Explorin’! Lookin’ for new things to see!
Out where all the new sights and sounds are.
Well, Braver… he ain’t been treated real well. So I’d make it a tradition to see to it that he’s comfortable first, every night before recharge. I’d get him anythin’ he wanted and pamper him a little.
I’d try and celebrate Halloween with Braver. It’s an Earth holiday, and I think he;d like it! Nothin’ but goofy costumes, energon treats, and scary movies for weeks!
Somewhere exciting. I mean, with his portal gun, we could go anywhere and see anything!
I first met Braver here on the Lost Light!
Clopsfish! They’re so cute absldrltf.
I dunno? Braver seems real passive. I don’t think we’d fight a lot at all.
Heh, I bet we’d always be on the road, flyin’ from place to place. I think a vacation, for us, would be sittin’ at home and just relaxin’! (laughs)
Anonymous“His kindness. Definitely. I get the feelin’ that Overlord ain’t so great to him—and I dunno why he won’t leave the guy alone and find someone who can treat him right—but he’s got such a good spark. He’s real sweet, and I like him.”
“I think he should work on getting his original partner back instead of trying to steal new ones… Destrons these days, honestly.” If Braver were human, he’d be rolling his eyes right now.
Eject throws his hands into the air. “Thank you, Braver! Primus, he just wouldn’t let the idea go! He knows I’m an antenna, too!” He shakes his head. “And he seemed to think you’d help him. Thanks, pal.”
“Odd. Maybe he wants to try something new out since shooting things doesn’t seem to be his strong point? And I’m supposed to be helping him wi— Er… Never mind.”
“I don’t know.” Eject shakes his head “But it ain’t my problem. As long as he can’t get here, then I guess I don’t got nothin’ to worry about. Anyway, thanks again, Braver!”
readyforsomefootball replied to your post: “Braver! You wouldn’t…“He says he did. I dunno what happened to the guy. He might have fallen through a tear or somethin’…” Eject shrugs.“I think he should work on getting his original partner back instead of trying to steal new ones… Destrons these days, honestly.” If Braver were human, he’d be rolling his eyes right now.
Eject throws his hands into the air. “Thank you, Braver! Primus, he just wouldn’t let the idea go! He knows I’m an antenna, too!” He shakes his head. “And he seemed to think you’d help him. Thanks, pal.”
Eject doesn’t seem to mind. The excitement is evident in Braver’s body language, and he can’t help but grin to himself at the sight. This little mech from the future is just so damned adorable. “Well, to be honest, I don’t really know how different it is, except it’s got you and clopsfish. I ain’t heard a whole lot about it.” He shrugs.
He waits patiently for Braver to explain, perking up. “Oh! So you’re from the future, too. My bud Tarantulas was, too. He’s from the future, but he got sent into the past, and I… I think it was your future, too? So you’re farther ahead in the timeline than OP, but Spider is farther ahead in the timeline than you, if it’s all the same dimension, and not, like you said, some kinda… possible future of some sort of weird branched timeline. And Jetstorm is even further along? I think?” He grimaces. “Eurgh. Makes my head spin.”
He shakes his head. He’s much more comfortable with coordinated multiple streams of complex data, not trying to wrap his mind around a singular, difficult-to-comprehend abstract topic. “‘Convoy’, huh? Sounds like a cool name.” He bulls his way through a particularly thick stand of brush and holds some of the vegetation back for Braver. “If you don’t mind me askin’, how did you get your name? Didja do somethin’ real brave?”
“There’s a dimension from even further in the future? I don’t think I’ve met anyone from there yet, but it sounds fascinating. As for my dimension, I guess I could tell you the basics…”
“The leader of the Autobots (aka Cybertrons) is Star Saber. Blacker is second-in-command. Blacker, Laster, and I combine to form Road Caesar. The four of us are also the only Brainmasters and we all have Brain forms like this.”
“The leader of our enemies, the Decepticons (aka Destrons), is Deathsaurus. Leozack is his second-in-command and he’s also part of a combiner, Liokaiser.”
He pauses, wondering if there’s anyone else he should mention.
“Ah, Deathsaurus also has a wife, Esmeral. And Leozack has a twin sister, Lyzack. And Star Saber has an adopted human son, Jan. Er… I’m trying to think if there’s anyone else you might have seen or heard about lately… Oh, there’s Blue Bacchus, a Destron mercenary. He has a ‘small mode’ like me too, although his isn’t a Brain but… er… something else.”
“Haha, it seems like mechs from my universe have a lot more combining and alternative forms going on than what I’ve seen of others. Sorry if I just made your head spin more! But er… aside from the name roster, I guess the only other big thing you should know about my universe is that planet Cybertron no longer exists. We’ve moved on to colonize other worlds, along with humans. That’s another thing too! We have a very good relationship with humans, but apparently that’s not the case here.”
Thanking Eject, Braver walks through the brush, looking ahead for anything interesting. He gets caught up in the scenery again and almost doesn’t register that Eject asked a question.
“Oh, uh… my name…? Eheheh, it’s nothing really that impressive. Shortly after I was created, we all went on this expedition to the Death Zone. The Death Zone is where most of the Destrons in my universe hail from, by the way. It’s inhabited by a wide variety of strange organic creatures and we ran into some on the trip. Everyone else, even the more experienced members of the team, was pretty freaked out, but apparently I thought the creatures were cool and ran out to find out more about them.”
“Hm, it was so long ago… let me try to remember what they looked like… Well, they kind of looked like centaurs. Except they had fins on their legs and large bulbous heads with a gaping mouth and a single eye. Haha, what is it with me and one-eyed things? They were pretty cool, though. Their eyes, I mean. I got really close to one and saw that they had these tiny red flames burning inside their pupils! Hmm. What else… Oh, and they had no skin! It was quite fascinating, watching that black blood flow through those yellow veins. Made it very easy to study their anatomy.”
“Anyway, it turned out the creatures were harmless and only ate kelp. Haha, I have no idea what was so scary about them, but everyone else thought I was very brave to go out and investigate them.”
Eject tilts his head towards Braver, listening with evident fascination as the alternate universe is described. Because his attention is focused on the other mech, he stumbles a few times, but manages to keep from falling over completely. “Yeah, technology from the future sure sounds complicated.” he blinks. “There are some cassette combiners, actually! Raindance and Grand Slam are two cassettes—they’re not family, but Rewind and I worked with ‘em once—and they combine. I’m sure there are others out there, too.”
He shrugs. “I’ve met some of those guys. Esmeral seems kind of nice, and Deathsaurus is… uhh. He’s different. I dunno, they seem kind of mild compared to some of the nasty fellas we’ve got running around here.” His expression turns grim, but this effect is somewhat ruined by him not looking where he’s going, and thusly walking into a bush. After he extricates himself, he adds, “But you know what they’re capable of more’n I do.”
They arrive at the pond as Braver finishes his story. “Hey, sounds like a cool way to earn a name to me. Because you earned it. Not that I mind bein’ given a name, or anythin’. But earnin’ it ‘cause that’s what you do? That’s neat. And those critters sound pretty wild!” He shakes his head. “I seen a lot of unusual creatures when I was on Earth, but it’s been such a long time… but hey, here we are now, and there are plenty of aliens to investigate here!” He turns his attention to the pond.
It’s fed by a stream that winds off through the foliage. The water is clear, and it’s easy to see straight to the rocky bottom. Shrimplike animals are darting about, lifting feathery appendages up into the current. They are brightly colored, with seemingly no rhyme or reason to their pattern. “Look at these little guys.” Eject squats by the stream, staring at them. “I didn’t see them here before!”
“Yeah, I think I see some crawling around in the dirt… Antlike creatures… Spiderlike creatures… Giraffelike cre—!? Oh, those are just some oddly-shaped plants…” Braver comments, ambling along behind Eject at a steady pace while trying to get a good look at, well, everything. Somehow, he resists the urge to drop on the ground and thoroughly investigate every single life sign his scanner detects.Although he doesn’t intend to seem unfriendly or standoffish, he’s too caught up in his surroundings and his replies may come across as… disinterested. Eject’s next question makes him perk up, though. The alternate universes and all related matters have almost become an obsession of his recently.
“Does my dimension really seem so different? I did find it odd that the others use alternative terminology for the two factions. Decepticons and Autobots instead of Destrons and Cybertrons.”
“But based on the information I’ve collected, it seems that my universe is actually very closely connected to another one. The only difference my instruments can detect between the two is temporal in nature. Er… that is to say, my universe is a direct future — or maybe one of several possible direct futures — to the other.”
Pausing for a moment, Braver tries to think of a distinguishing characteristic Eject might know. The perfect one soon comes to mind.
“The other universe is the one with the Optimus Prime who enjoys basketball. I only had a brief chance to speak with him after the portal phenomena began, but I instantly recognized him as the Optimus Prime I once knew. Heh, except I always called him ‘Convoy’ back then. Couldn’t pronounce his real name because my vocalizer hadn’t calibrated yet.”
Eject doesn’t seem to mind. The excitement is evident in Braver’s body language, and he can’t help but grin to himself at the sight. This little mech from the future is just so damned adorable. “Well, to be honest, I don’t really know how different it is, except it’s got you and clopsfish. I ain’t heard a whole lot about it.” He shrugs.
He waits patiently for Braver to explain, perking up. “Oh! So you’re from the future, too. My bud Tarantulas was, too. He’s from the future, but he got sent into the past, and I… I think it was your future, too? So you’re farther ahead in the timeline than OP, but Spider is farther ahead in the timeline than you, if it’s all the same dimension, and not, like you said, some kinda… possible future of some sort of weird branched timeline. And Jetstorm is even further along? I think?” He grimaces. “Eurgh. Makes my head spin.”
He shakes his head. He’s much more comfortable with coordinated multiple streams of complex data, not trying to wrap his mind around a singular, difficult-to-comprehend abstract topic. “‘Convoy’, huh? Sounds like a cool name.” He bulls his way through a particularly thick stand of brush and holds some of the vegetation back for Braver. “If you don’t mind me askin’, how did you get your name? Didja do somethin’ real brave?”
Braver immediately switches straight into Science Mode except that’s his default mode so maybe not.“Sure, that sounds great! From my experiences, aquatic organisms are some of the most interesting ones. Lead the way!”
He pulls out a miniature version of his Tricorder-like scanning device, ready to gather data in greater detail.
Eject leads the way, and for once he doesn’t have to trot to keep up with the longer strides of his companion. It’s quite nice. “It ain’t real far, and maybe we’ll see some other stuff while we’re on our way. There are a lot of bugs, too,” he adds.
He walks along in silence for a bit before looking to Braver. “So you come from a real different dimension, don’t you?” Eject has made a sort of catalog of dimensions in his processor, along with details about each, but he knows next to nothing about Braver’s home.
“Nice to finally meet you too!” Braver says, bowing and then shaking Eject’s hand. ”Heh, yeah, it’s easier to observe organic life in detail this way.”Unaware of Eject’s initial confusion and already distracted by his surroundings, he makes quick mental notes on the current climate and surrounding vegetation. “So, where were these lifeforms you saw?”
Eject immediately switches gears, leaping straight into Exploring Mode. “Well, there were a lot of ‘em, actually. Some pals of mine and I were climbin’ a ridge the other day, and there was a lot! And I seen some really big stuff, too. But there were some cool things livin’ in the water down that way.” He gestures off to a rise. Trees cover the uneven terrain, hiding the ground from view. “There’s a stream and a little waterfall in there, and these scuttilin’ things. They looked kinda like crabs!”
He grins at Braver. “Sound like a good place to start?”
Eject grins. “Right outside the ship. There’s these fields that go on for a while—that’s how we set the Lost Light down—I won’t be hard to see. The grasses are mostly flat now.” And, of course, Eject is bright blue. “I’ll head out there right now. Just need to swing by the mess and grab some fuel, and then I’ll be right out!”Fifteen minutes later finds Eject outside, freshly fueled and staring off at the distant dark green haze of the forest all around them. He’s going over the most interesting sights in his mind, and wondering what exactly it is Braver will find most intellectually stimulating. Hmm. He did seem interested in the wildlife when they spoke. He’ll see if he can track down any of the critters he’s seen so far.
“Alright, I’ll see you soon. I’ll be in Brain mode by the way. Bye!”
Braver wonders if he should tell Blacker where he’s going, but he has no idea when his commander is going to be finished and settles on leaving him a note outside the door instead.
He transforms out into Brain mode, storing the rest of his Transtector over in hammer space, and checks over his planetary survey equipment before making his way outside. It doesn’t take him long to spot Eject out in the field.
“Hello!” he calls as he runs over to the other mech. “Hope you didn’t have to wait for me long.”
The minibot turns as he’s called to, and immediately blinks, startled by Braver’s size. Braver has mentioned this before—the fact that his large body is really more of some kind of extended suit, or something alone those lines—but Eject had not expected to see him like this. “Nah, you’re good,” he replies with an easy grin. His mask is retracted for the moment, but his visor, as always, is in place. “I was just thinkin’.”
“So, hey, nice to meet you official-like! And in person! We’ve only ever really talked on the comm channels.” He extends a hand to Braver. “Though, you know,” he adds with a snicker, “I thought maybe you’d be a little bit taller.”
