The First Step To Adopting A Stray Is Making Sure It's Properly Fixed...

[strataseeker]

Deep under the waves of the Pacific Ocean lies the sprawling Decepticon base, Terradessa-1. It's quiet these days, inhabited by a skeleton crew - or, in some cases, a literal ghost crew, depending which of the resident spooks are actually hanging around - of a few refugee Decepticons from other universes, and a bare handful of those that remained

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[headless_seeker]

Midnight steps through the curious looking door (What did all those markings carved on the frame mean?) from the Nexus and finds himself in an unremarkable corridor. He staggers slightly as the gravity shifts slightly from the Nexus, and his balance is hampered by his pronounced limp and stiffness of gait.

One hand reaches out to touch the wall, steadying him; the other still firmly holds Midnight's own severed head.

That head looks suspiciously at Strata. "Okay, we're in a base. Lousy security if you can just walk through this dimension-bridge thingy and pop in here."

[strataseeker]

"We were expected," Strata replies simply, not feeling like getting into an argument with the disagreeable 'Con about security and truces and the vagrancies of Nexus portals.

She turns on one thruster boot and stalks down the corridor, heading towards the repair bay.

// Shifter, we're here. Heading for the repair bay, // she comms the Eurofighter, figuring that if he's curious, he'll pop up when it suits him, but otherwise she isn't expecting a reply from him.

"So, you got a name I should call you, or should I just stick with 'hey you'?" she asks over her shoulder.

Although she looks relatively relaxed and carefree, she's acutely aware that there is a fresh-from-a-battlefield Decepticon from a non-truce world very much in her vulnerable sector. One who looks pretty badly damaged, but likely has some rather nasty defenses still up his sleeve if he's capable of wandering around holding his head like a parcel. And unlike the Nexus, Terradessa-1 does not have a convenient anti-violnce field. It's taking a bit of concentration to

[headless_seeker]

Midnight's shoulders twitch in something that might be a shrug, but looks damned odd without a head there between them.

"Fair enough. I'm Midnight." The rest of his assignment details shouldn't concern this Autobot.

He relaxes slightly as she leads him down the corridors--if this had really been an ambush, they could have burned him down when he came through the portal and there wouldn't have been much he could do about it. Yeah, maybe they just want to get me intact to an interrogator, too. If they do, they're in for a big surprise.

The Autobot Seeker--seriously, that is weird--claimed to be a repair tech, too. That might be--at least she didn't freak out on seeing him--but she'd been in combat. The way she carried herself, kept him on her radar screen--yeah, she'd fought Cons, and didn't trust him a whole lot more than he trusted her. Whatever was going on here didn't involve Cons as servile flunkies of the Bots, anyway. And she didn't act like a conquered slave, either.

This reality was seriously weird.

[strataseeker]

One final turn, another few steps, and a large set of doubledoors yawns open, revealing a dark cavernous room that abruptly lights up as Strata absently slaps the controls as she passes through into the repair bay

[lavender_wings]

((ctd. from above))

"No, I didn't hatch her, though stranger things have happened in the Nexus," Steadfast explains. "She's my companion's creation," - Midnight's reaction hints that he's from a reality where parental relationships are thought of as strange, thus she thinks it prudent to avoid the word 'Sparkling' - "and under my protection. Calling me her 'Mama' is a way of expressing that relationship."

While Steadfast doesn't go so far as to say as much in words, her tone goes lengths towards implying the amount of trust and connectedness that exists between her and Wingblade.

[strataseeker]

Seized by the imp of perverse, Strata almost explains that, technically, she and Photon both came "from an egg" originally. Some ghost of prudence and discretion steps in at the last moment, however, and stops her from totally frying the poor Seeker's CPU. He's already wounded and damaged. No reason to kick the poor mech while he's down.

Strata grins a little and then turns to pick up her tools, returning to work.

"Photon's off with Perceptor and Wheeljack today, cheerfully working away on something that she used way too many syllables per word to be healthy when she tried to explain it to me. I couldn't even pronounce the name, but there was at least one 'capacitor' and three types of physics involved. You should drop her a databurst of that holo-image, Wingblade," Strata offers.

[prankster_femme]

*Wingblade giggles at Strata's explanation of where Photon is.* Alright. *Looks at Steadfast* Do you have the imager with you, Mama?

[lavender_wings]

"Yes, I do." Steadfast carefully hands the imager to Wingblade.