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Who: Arcee and YOU!
Where: All around L.A.
When: THIS WEEK
What: Arcee's scouting out the city, gathering information and getting to know humankind.
Warnings: idk robots

Nothing about this mission has been easy. Not spending the terse weeks in the cramped Rod Pod with Rodimus, not trying to keep her troops in line, nothing to do with Optimus -- no, Orion now. It had been hard to let him go, to watch him walk away when she knows that she and the other Autobot pose the least threat to him. If he goes back to Megatron, Arcee's not sure what'll happen with the war. And the fact that Megatron's on this planet at all is cause for concern.

That, and the considerably more local threats. Orion's terrifying bout of mind control hadn't come at the hands of the Decepticons, but something Earth-based. Something deeply sinister. Arcee knows a bit about this planet, but not enough. It's starting to look like they might be here a while, so she decides it's time for some serious recon.

She has a holomatter avatar for precisely this reason -- blending in with the local populace, maintaining a low profile. It's a remote projection, solid enough to interact with its environment and relay data back to Arcee. She can learn a lot just by driving around, but certain information is a lot easier to come by when you get up close and personal. She can be found around the city either as her human avatar, who's gathering any information she might be able to find about Megatron's whereabouts and the strange happenings in L.A. of light, or as a sleek motorcycle on the city streets, either bearing a holographic rider when on the move (because a motorcycle moving on its own would definitely be cause for suspicion), or unattended while parked out of the way to watch passersby.

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Arcee had slid into a vacant space in the line of motorcycles parked
in front of a strip of restaurants and small shops, watching -- and
listening -- to the people passing by. She's idly keeping an audial
out for any important keywords in passing conversation, but most of
her attention is directed inward as she taps into human data networks.
That's where the real information seems to be.

So when a spectacularly clumsy human knocks into a motorcycle a few
away from her, she doesn't notice right away -- not until she feels
the scrape of the one next to her hitting her plating and her kneejerk
reaction is to rev her engine and try to gun it out of the way. She
doesn't quite manage, her tires squealing for traction briefly before
she topples over altogether with a noisy clank. Scrap.

"Hey, watch it, kid!" she snaps, scrambling to project her holomatter
avatar in her surprise. Her avatar appears rounding the corner toward
Severa, an agitated-looking woman in biking gear, but it comes just a
moment too late -- anyone paying attention might think that the voice
came from the motorcycle and not the lady moving to hoist it
back upright.

Oh, crap. "Uh. What?"

Yeah. Yeah, still perfect. Severa looks over her shoulder at her "handiwork" and pretends to have no idea what's actually going on. "I didn't do that."

She's not really paying attention to the source of the voice right now, because she's focused on her lie. Which is still amazing and believable. In fact, she even tries to keep walking and let this be someone else's problem. But... dammit, no, she can't. She stops.

"Which one is yours?" she asks, still totally committed to her lie.

"Which one do you think?" The words come out waspishly as Arcee's holomatter avatar grasps her alt mode and appears to pull it upright with a little grunt of effort. She wouldn't ordinarily be this peeved, but with everything that's happened recently, she's kind of on edge, and she's been wearing a little thin lately. So much has been heaped on her shoulders -- the responsibility almost too massive to bear -- she just doesn't have the patience for clumsy organics today.

"You know, if you're going to lie, the least you could do is pick a convincing one, kid."

Severa's expression almost immediately sours at being called a "kid" and also being snapped at. She was going to help. Now... okay, she's still going to help, because this was her fault and she is technically a hero. And PR is PR.

"I'm eighteen," she protests, heading to the first domino in the motorcycle chain. "I haven't had to lift one of these in a while," she says to herself, as though she's ever actually had to lift a motorcycle, like, in a professional environment. Still, it's what, 600 pounds or something like that? Not totally impossible. She stretches her arms straight up above her head. "If I can't do this myself, want to help?" It's not really a question.

"You want me to help you clean up your mess?" Arcee retorts, looking a little incredulous. Her real body back on its two tires, the avatar stands back, arms crossed as she looks Severa over. She doesn't look too weak, as far as humans go, but then again, she doesn't really know how strong they're supposed to be. And as agitated as she might be, Arcee doesn't really want to leave the other bikes in a heap. It just strikes her as sort of wrong.

"All right, all right. I'll lend you a hand -- but you really need to start watching where you're going. You could have actually hurt yourself, you know -- or someone else."

"You don't seem to have any problem with it," she says over her shoulder, even though yeah, this person is probably just looking out for herself. Then she hears the other woman agree to help, turns around, and grins. With a grunt of effort, she grips the frame underhand and brings the first motorcycle back to a standing position with significant help from her killer leg muscles. It's obviously easier with the ground as a pivot point (she's not dead lifting motorcycles in her free time, Christ) but still maybe an impressive feat for someone as young and small-looking as her.

"Guess I can skip leg day," she says with slightly more wear in her voice than there just was. But she'd never seen somebody lift something that heavy so effortlessly. "How much do you do?"

Scrap. Arcee glances over at the girl -- she doesn't look all that old, but she's obviously pretty strong for a young human, and she's struggling with the motorcycle far more than the avatar. Maybe Arcee needs to tone it down a little. These avatars never were very specifically calibrated.

That, and the girl's question doesn't make any sense. Arcee's expression is one of clear bewilderment. "Pardon?"

Wait, was Severa not loud enough? No, that can't be it. She can read this other person's face pretty well; she's just clumsy, not stupid. "You... do work out, right?" Is this somebody with natural strength? Or another superhero? No, she'd probably recognize her if she were another superhero. So... she's just ridiculously strong. To the point where she probably could dead lift a motorcycle. And Severa just pissed her off, probably. Well, this'll be fun from here on.

Double scrap. It's obvious the girl's asked her a totally normal question for a human. Arcee's done plenty of infiltration work in her career as an Autobot, but her experience with blending in with alien life is comparatively limited. And humans are awfully prone to random chatter with strangers. She's just glad Rodimus isn't here to see this, her eyebrows shooting up as she fumbles for an actual answer. Working out. That means exercise -- training. From what she knows about humans, that means something different for them -- organic bodies are such a strange notion for her to get her head around -- but the concept is familiar at least.

"Oh -- well, yeah," she says as though that should have been obvious, hoping for a quick recovery. "Of course. Practically every day."

She can hope for that quick recovery all she wants, but she won't be getting it. Against her better judgment, Severa goes for snarky instead of cautious in her reply. "You know, if you're an unregistered hero, you can tell me." Maybe not full snark. But she does cock an eyebrow with her hip and place her hand on the bike she just righted. "Or don't. I don't make it my business to out people. But it's pretty obvious you've got something going on."

And hopefully whatever that something is won't bite her in the ass if she calls this person out on it.

Arcee doesn't see much point in attempting to cover it up anymore -- this part of her subterfuge, anyway. She's a little annoyed at herself for slipping like that, but at least the phenomena of unusual powers aren't totally unheard of amongst humans. She sighs, crossing her arms.

"All right, all right. Yeah, I guess you could say I'm not the most...average human."

"I knew it," Severa says, totally full of herself like any normal human would be. She'll leave the speculation unspoken, but she's already running a bunch of possibilities for secondary powers in her head. (Super strength is the obvious one.)

"Thanks for the help," she grunts out after hefting a second motorcycle to a standing position. It probably won't take too much longer now. "Highlander." No, it's her name, not just some random word.

It takes a second for Arcee to register that as her name and her eyebrows go up a little, but she nods. "Highlander. Right." She pauses, shifting forward to extend a hand. That's what humans do, right? Yeah. This is totally the thing. "Arcee."

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