capitalh | SCARY JAIL PARTY TRUCK

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SCARY JAIL PARTY TRUCK

Who: Orion and Arcee, and also anyone who wants to do a scene in the back of the party truck, or otherwise try to chase the party truck.
Where: Desert roads and the streets of Los Angeles
When: March 13th onward
What: Orion is being brain controlled into ferrying stuff between locations for the AI with his turning into a truck powers.
Warnings: Mind control, and everything else this plot is already guilty of.

It's one of the most frustrating and despair inducing experiences Orion has ever had. He's not entirely sure what triggered it - him trying and failing to help people escape and convincing the captor he needed to be separated from the others, or if this was what the AI had always intended to do with him.

His manual controls re-installed after being removed by Knock Out, he's been given a trailer to pull and forced into driving between what he's discovered are multiple locations filled with prisoners such as himself and the others. He's not really sure what he's being loaded with most of the time, not being given the opportunity to look. But he knows that sometimes it's live prisoners.

He take little agency in the physical action of the thing. It's not quite like his body is moving without him, but more like a compulsion that takes priority over all his other actions. It gives him no opportunity to speak, transform, or do anything to draw attention to himself - it's just an exhausting series of roads and he's gradually running lower and lower on energon, as the AI seems to failed to consider that Cybertronians need fuel to run.

To anyone else, he looks just like a normal red and blue truck with a normal trailer. It's been designed to blend in - even if Orion knows that the interior is very much like the prison cells beneath the surface.

[OOC: feel pretty to try to get into his face along the route towards any of the three base locations, if you can think of a reason he would stick out. He radiates high energy signals due to being a robot, and also there is no one in the actual driver seat if you can look close enough. Only restriction is you can't actually catch him for good because that can't happen until phase 2 of the plot.]

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[Legion is moving out from the Mojave desert zone, and radioing CONDOR to investigate when they observe Orion moving along the highway. Thermal scans show a an exceptionally intense heat signature, certainly nothing an ordinary truck should be capable of producing, and further examination indicates that it is in fact a Cybertronian.

They ping its comms hopefully - Knock Out had been surprisingly reticent to deliver information.]

[The ping comes as an almost startling surprise to Orion, as he was not expecting any sort of change to communicate out here. He attempts to send a voice message but finds himself incapable of doing so.

Increasingly anxious that he may miss his chance to gain the attention of anyone that might help them, he manages to ping Legion back in response, but with no attached message.]

[The consensus buzzes excitedly, introduces themselves, and inquires as to Orion's own identity, following the truck itself approximately fifteen yards back and twenty yards above the ground.]

This whole mutant cyborg business is exhausting. What had Rodimus said about Earth being a joke again? Arcee wishes that were true. She'd done her research on the planet with the files she had on hand, but none of them had mentioned anything about horrific patchwork organics.

She's been on alert since she ran into Ultra Magnus, always careful, but whatever's going on still doesn't supersede the mission. She's out patrolling the area around the city after dark when she sees an energon signature come up on her scanners -- one that she knows isn't Rodimus or Ultra Magnus. Can't be. They're patrolling elsewhere.

Arcee tries not to get her hopes up. They don't even know for sure if Optimus is on this planet. It could be someone else -- even a Decepticon. There are too many variables, too many unknowns. So when she moves to chase the energon signature, track it down, she goes stealthily, moving discreetly. She can't afford to blow her cover.

The truck driving out of the city is unmistakably familiar. Arcee'd know that frame anywhere. It's an Earth alt mode, of course, but as she slips into traffic two lanes over and several carlengths back, weaving closer and closer, she's almost certain it's Optimus. She refuses to consider even for a moment that her conviction might be strengthened by the hope clouding her spark.

But even as sure as she, as she wants to be, something's not right. All right, so she's come up from behind on the stealthy side, and he might not recognize her Earth alt mode -- she's not nearly as distinctive, if you don't know what you're looking for -- but there's...just something not right about the way he's driving. The fact that he's out here at all, apparently unharmed, driving further and further out of the city towards...what, exactly? He's clearly headed somewhere. It doesn't add up. It doesn't sit right in her spark, and she doesn't like it.

She tails him another couple of miles, just to be on the safe side. But it's still him. It has to be.

She decides to take a chance. She's sure there's some kind of explanation for all of this, after all. He may just be maintaining a strict cover. After all, if you're stranded on an alien planet with no means of escape or long-range communication... She pings his radio, pulling out of his blind spot in clear view of one of his side mirrors. "Optimus? Optimus, it's Arcee. Do you copy?"

[He's nervous about how to proceed. He's not sure if his new alterations will allow his captor to track his communication systems, if he manages to transmit this more subdued form of data. He wants to try looking behind himself, but the less he does to attract the creatures attention to him the better.

He doesn't know who Legion is, exactly, but he doesn't waste time with his own name. Instead, he immediately transmits a distress signal.]

No hostiles detected, the consensus responds immediately. They begin to collate all data pertaining to resemblances between this organism and Knock Out. It's startlingly similar.

[Okay, well, that didn't work. No hostiles, indeed. He's almost certain that if he transmits anything loud, that the thing driving him will notice. The question is, what can he spare the words on?]

[He sends the distress signal again, insisting. Then, he carefully follows it with a brief text message:]

Prisoners.

[A synthetic prisoner, the consensus determines, has to be a captive of the false dynamo.

Their next message, consisting solely of the word Location?, is accompanied by an extraordinarily subtle virus, designed to bury itself deep within lower-order processes responsible for mathematical functions - analogous to an organic's autonomic nervous system. In [HOWEVER LONG IT TAKES UNTIL WE REACH PART TWO OF THIS PLOT], it'll go active, transmitting copies of itself over every open signal and broadcasting its location to the Alpha Force tower and Legion themselves.

The question is, will it stick.]

He doesn't notice the fact that he's being tailed up until that message. He isn't really paying attention anymore. He's feels irrationally guilty for the fact that he is aiding this monster in what they've been doing, even though it was never really his choice.

It just feels really familiar, he thinks.

Though he'd supposedly been at it for thousands of years, he has no memory of the time he had spent leading the Autobots. It's something he's thankful for. It implies a certain separation of self from Optimus Prime, the person that had ruined the revolution, and so many robot's lives. Though it still weighs on him, it helps him to feel a little better about the fact that he isn't that person now, and never would have wanted to be.

But now it feels like he's been controlled into doing someone's dirty work yet again, and it's getting to him in a bad way. Especially since this time, he's having to witness every moment of it despite being so vividly aware of how wrong this all is.

He's been so angry at times during this whole misadventure, but now he finds himself tired and scared. He desperately wants a way out, but now he can't help himself, let alone anyone else. He worries about Starscream and Knock Out almost constantly.

The radio messages fills him with a new sort of dread. Primus, if they're calling him Optimus they must be an Autobot. He genuinely doesn't know what to do.

For now he just refuses to answer, subconsciously speeding up. That's at least one thing his command will allow.

Arcee doesn't know what to make of him speeding up, trying to get away, but she tells herself there has to be an explanation. Optimus wouldn't just ignore her and -- drive away. There must be something more at hand, something dangerous -- those mutant cyborgs...is this related somehow? Are they even capable of taking down a Prime? Dread is nagging at her spark, weighing it down, but she only picks up speed herself and keeps close -- after all, she's pretty fast, and far more maneuverable.

"Don't worry, Optimus, this is an encrypted frequency," Arcee assures him. She tries to keep the uneasy edge from her voice, but it's hard. This really doesn't feel right. "We came for you. Are you being watched? What's your status?"

[It takes a moment to figure it out, but he manages to get together coordinates for the different bases - which basically amount to the same locations as the mutant hot spots, though unfortunately not much more specific. He hesitates about sending them, worried again about gaining unwanted attention.

Primus, he has to. He hopes this entity is friendly, because this could be his only chance.

He sends the approximate locations of the three coordinates.

As for the virus, he doesn't notice it at all.]

Edited 2014-04-30 00:43 (UTC)

[The consensus is disturbed by the indication that they've missed the prisoner sites, and sets about rewriting their scanning suites as they continue to talk to Orion.]

Destination?

He doesn't think that encryption will matter much if the one listening in has direct access to his processor. A voice frequency will give his activity away almost certainly, and even if he wouldn't he doesn't know if an Autobot is the one he should be relying on. He doesn't know what to do. From everything he's read, the Autobots can be extremely brutal to their enemies.

If they knew they truth would they help his comrades, or scrap them? He doesn't know nearly enough about anything.

Nothing about her questions surprise him. Of course they'd come looking for their leader. The thing is that he never wants to go back.

He speeds up again, but this time not of his own prompting. He feels ill. His tail has been noticed by more than just him.

Edited 2014-04-30 07:26 (UTC)

[He's trying to re-transmit the coordinates for the desert prison when he feels himself suddenly accelerate, and something does its best to scramble his processor.

The truck visibly swerves on the highway, and from the inside Orion is finding himself flooded with a sudden, full bodied pain. Panic fills his spark - it caught him. His engine sputters for a moment like a palpitating heart.

The truck's driving goes from steady to utterly reckless, swerving into the ditch to get around a car in front of him. For the moment, Orion can barely focus on what's going on around him.]

[There's nothing for it. Legion halts, lower body swinging upright underneath their upper body, and they move their hands and cast a mass effect field over the truck. Pax's body, barring any safeguards, should increase by a factor of two every fourth of a second - first twice his original weight, then four times, then sixteen, the consensus planning to stop him by increasing his weight so much he won't be able to move at all.]

It's impossible to ignore the trepidation growing in Arcee's spark now. No reply, and he just keeps speeding up? She's triple-checked the scanners; it's him giving off the energon signature, no mistake. And even if he weren't Optimus -- something which Arcee has a very hard time believing -- he'd have attacked or said something by now, wouldn't he? Something here is very, very wrong.

Maybe she should call for backup -- the others aren't so far that they couldn't make it -- but she doesn't. She feels like she needs more information, more to go off of. Her engine rumbles as she picks up speed to match his, keeping in close just behind him. She'll at least tail him to wherever he's going -- that'll give her something.

He can almost feel the moment when his pilot loses patience with the situation, his tires biting into the concrete as he abruptly swerves off of the road and into the sand. She keeps following, even then, and Orion can't shake a certain feeling of guilt for knowing that he isn't who she wants him to be, in more ways than one.

It's not far into the desert that the situation changes. As the motorcycle pursues, he feels himself take a turn - just in time for him to feel his t-cog activate with almost painful force, leaving the trailer in the dust as he rolls forward, and comes up with his guns shifted.

Orion is panicking. He doesn't want to hurt this bot, no matter who they are, but he can't stop his already limited energon supply from charging inside his weapons. Even now he can't speak - with his battle mask up, the only sign of his struggle is the strain visible in his optics.

Edited 2014-04-30 15:32 (UTC)

[Under normal circumstances, Orion would have had much more difficulty with this, in a situation where reaction time is so key. But when he's being driven by another AI, the decision that the situation needs to change happens near instantaneously.

He unhitches from the trailer and starts to transform, his pilot forcing his body through the effect just long enough to get out of the field, even as his plating groans under the pressure. He dives into a roll once he's dodged, and brings up his gun hands, immediately taking fire on the source of the effect.]

Arcee has served under Optimus Prime for thousands of years, but never in that time -- not once -- has she ever been on the business end of his guns. Optimus Prime has never had cause to fire on her, because she's never given him one. But now, staring down the barrel of his guns as they charge, growing hotter by the second, something has obviously changed. It's a chilling wake up call.

She transforms when he does, thinking she'll pursue him on foot or they'll talk or -- something -- but as she rolls to her feet with a cacophny of clanking plating, she stops short, optics going wide. She can see the energon glow growing brighter in the barrels, and her spark suddenly feels stifled, as though someone's trying to smother it. Because there's no doubt about it -- this is Optimus Prime, if she's ever known it -- and he's about to fire on her.

There's a world of confusion and disbelief and betrayal in her optics, optics that search his face for some kind of explanation, some kind of answer. All she finds in his optics is the flicker of an immense internal struggle, some wordless battle he's fighting inside himself -- but that's enough. Optimus can't be doing this of his own will, and that's all she needs to know.

Her optics narrow slightly in determination and she tenses, her body coiled like a spring -- with only the kind of agility a bot her size could manage, she dives out of the way just before he fires on her, hitting the ground with a roll.

Maybe the AI has finally sensed that it's working with a limited stamina, because as his first couple shots plunge uselessly into the sand, ranged attacks seem to leave the table. His guns shift out for blades, and he barrels forward after her, plunging a sword deep into the sand while just missing her leg.

Wrenching his weapon out of the dirt, his improbable leaping skills are used to have him jump over her, cutting her off on the other side of her roll. His blades loom over her threateningly, and that's where Orion officially can't take it anymore.

He saw that look on her face. This isn't the look of a merciless oppressor, this is the look of someone genuinely betrayed by what they've been taught to believe - a lesson that he's almost certainly personally responsible for.

Autobot or not, he refuses to let her die like this.

There's a limit to what he can do, but he starts by spamming his own priority trees with as many unchallenging but time wasting commands as he can think of. Things that won't be completely washed beneath his pilots instructions, because technically they aren't going against the objective. Resetting his feet, slowing his aim. Anything to keep his processor so busy that no one can use it properly.

On the outside he looms, blades raised to strike, but his frame shifting almost nervously in anticipation of a strike. A strike that is definitely still coming, but hopefully clumsily enough for her to get away.

Edited 2014-04-30 17:59 (UTC)

Arcee can't handle this on her own. She knows that. She's not sure she
can take Optimus in a fight -- even like this -- but more than that,
she doesn't want to. She doesn't know the circumstances, not
yet. She needs answers, backup, and -- and time. Time to figure
this out, because whatever's going on, one thing is clear: Optimus is
not himself.

She doesn't know that the slow, uneven movements, the strange
hesitations are a result of Optimus fighting whatever's controlling
him, but she'd put a hundred shanix on it. He'd never just sit back
and let something like this happen. She doesn't waste the opportunity
he's given her -- as soon as there's an opening she leaps nimbly out
of his grasp, hitting the ground running. She doesn't look back, not
even as she transforms back into the motorcycle, her tires churning up
angry sprays of sand as she tears back toward the road, past the
trailer full of mystery cargo he'd been carting. For now, she has to
get away -- retreat, regroup, formulate a plan. For now.

We're coming for you, Optimus. Just hold on a little longer.

The transformation takes the consensus by surprise - they had assigned the excessive hear signatures to hidden weaponry and long-lasting power cores, not something as complex as a literal transformation between vehicular and bipedal forms. Fifty runtimes are allocated to analyzing Pax to ensure Legion is in no more surprise as combat processes begin maneuvering procedures.

They dodge left, then right, relying on the movement of Pax's arms to anticipate where he's aiming, moving back all the while. Once they make it behind the trailer, they drop, keeping it between the hostile and them.

It's only now that Orion is really catching up with the action, otherwise having been completely confused by the process of the pilot AI abruptly taking control. He feels the energon burn in the barrels of his guns, and he's immediately concerned for the entity he's been messaging. He can only spare a moment wondering what species it is, and what being a terminal of geth really means.

There's obvious hesitation in firing at the trailer from an angle where it might be damaged. At the same time, Orion can almost feel the reluctance in his own movements - his driver doesn't want to get close to this target, not after getting a taste of that they can do.

He takes a running leap at the trailer, doing the kind of kickflip over it that seems far too graceful for a machine of his size. Landing, he raises his guns again, energon already charging.

But, instead of attacking, Orion feels something even more unsavory - the sensation of his vocalizer being haltingly accessed.

"You are the ter-terminal of geth," he says, his vocalizer glitching uncomfortably. "You read the Sublime Words."

What.

"Files were received and analyzed," Legion says, and points an emitter at the trailer. "Fire and we will trigger a warp field around the contents of this trailer, destroying it."

Despite his best hopes, he does not lower his guns. How does the geth know this thing? Are they related, somehow? The way the geth communicates is different from Cybertronians - in its way it does seem more similar to the transmissions he feels coming from the AI.

He flinches, visibly, when Legion threatens to crush the trailer though. It's entirely Orion's reaction and not his pilots, because he knows exactly the kinds of things, and people, that get transported in there.

"That would be incon-con-inconvenient," he says against his will, his voice glitching again like the pilot doesn't fully know how to use it. "But only that. The geth would also be terminating human-oid-oid Unclean, land walkers, technology."

"Then you are required to immediately abandon this trailer," Legion intones. "If not, we will confiscate it by whatever means necessary."

They keep one hand aimed at the trailer - if they lighten it, snatch it, and fly off, Pax will be unable to follow them at equivalent speeds, and CONDOR might be able to get something from the prisoners.

"Unacceptable," it says though his mouth, and he can already feel the energon growing warm in his hands. His pilot opens fire on Legion without any further warning.

The gun comes out again as she escapes - the objective may be protected, but he's sure the thing would just love another Cybertronian toy. By this point, Orion has made a decision, and that decision is that this is something he won't allow. He rails against his pilot's commands until each shot has hit the dirt behind her, and she's officially out of range.

The guns go away, then, but Orion can almost feel how unimpressed his captor is through the mental link. It recognized the flurry of unhelpful activity, and it knows that Orion had a heavy hand in letting the target get away.

It expresses its disapproval by triggering a burning flash of pain through his frame - one that sends him down to his knees. He shutters his optics, shaking with the feeling, but it does little to alter his mood at this point. It's not much worse than being electrocuted, and it definitely isn't worse than what Knock Out did to his audial.

He doesn't, and may never, know who that two wheeler was. But at least she won't share his fate.

The heat accumulating within Pax's arms is unmistakable, and the consensus reacts in milliseconds - trading barrier strength for field emission and lightening both their own platform and the trailer in half the time. They rocket upwards out of the way, snatch the trailer, and race off into the distance at top speed.

The reactions between the two halves of this side of the operation are completely disparate. Orion, for one, could not be more pleased with the fact that the geth has apparently flown away with the trailer. His pilot, however, is furious.

The AI riding him reactions before Orion can fully take in the situation, jumping with surprising power, just in time to latch on to the rear of the trailer as Legion pulls it away like nothing more than a cloud.

Certainly nothing could go wrong with this plan.

Not expecting the weight, Legion's platform, the trailer, and Pax all drop almost to the road. Three feet more and the bottom of the trailer would be scraping it.

The platform supposes Pax's body is doing that instead.

You know, there's something really irritating about having to experience the physical ramification's of someone else's dubious combat strategies. This is what Orion Pax is doing presently, as he finds his legs and feet kicking up sparks against the pavement. It is far from pleasant.

As much as his pilot wants to hold on, Orion is determined to let go. If whoever the trailer is carrying can be set free, he considers it his responsibility to make happen. Unfortunately, his control over the situation is limited.

Finally, the thing manages to work out how to stop pavement skating, and manages to climb onto the top of the trailer. They raise a hand, swiftly shift it into a gun, and fire another shot at Legion.

Legion is looking behind them this time, having learned from the last time, and promptly fires a shoulder thruster sideways, rotating the trailer upside down and placing their platform under it.

Unfortunately (fortunately) gun hands aren't very good at holding onto things.

Orion finds himself stabbing one of his hand blades into the metal of the trailer as it flips, just barely latching onto it enough that his pilot's grip isn't dislodged immediately. However, it definitely does mean that they are back to kicking up sparks down the freeway, and this time holding on is a matter of physical improbability.

After colliding with the pavement a few times, his blade finally tears through the soft outer plating of the trailer, and Orion is left skidding down the road on his back while the geth flies away with the trailer.

There are some extremely poorly aimed shots fired into the sky, but ultimately he grinds to a halt, staring up at the sky as the trailer disappears into the distance. Orion is relieved. His captor is, once again, furious.

Already calculating that they won't be able to catch up now, the AI gives up on trying to drive Orion all together for a while, presumably occupying itself with something else.

Orion is frankly just glad for the break, and glad that at least in part, this creature's plans have failed.

Legion flips the trailer upright again, radios CONDOR, advising emergency health personnel to meet them at a rendezvous, and uploads Pax's file to Alpha Tower. The consensus considers file species_21_indiv_2 as they fly off.

It's a fair amount to process.

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SCARY JAIL PARTY TRUCK

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NICE (we can assume this happens closeish to the 15th)

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I HOPE THIS IS REASONABLE

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