Who: Legion, Arcee Where: A road way out in the desert When: March 13th, after both of them run into Orion Pax. What: Two robots discuss a third robot. Warnings: None.
The consensus is compiling its report on the unknown synthetics when runtime-0234, running thermal optics, spots Arcee's thermal pattern and flags it for review. Runtimes -1540 and -0764 confirm it, and the issue is brought to the consensus at large. Little deliberation is needed; no useful data has been pulled either from the unknown synthetic in Los Angeles or the one down the road, but heat dispersion patterns and internal microsounds suggest similar configurations despite highly disparate external shapes. The pattern is there, and Legion is not one to deny it.
This entire thought process takes perhaps a millisecond, and then Legion is pinging Arcee, requesting a meeting at coordinates not far from either's current location. It's a small outcropping of rock, but enough to hide both Legion and a small motorcycle. They figure it'll be enough.
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.]
Who: Arcee and Rodimus Where: In and around L.A. When: March 6th What: The Autobot cavalry arrives on Earth in search of Optimus Prime. In the Rod Pod. Oh yeah. Warnings: petty bickering about the chain of command, probably