nexus_sages | (no subject)

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Until he joined the crew of the Lost Light, Pipes had only ever been on Cybertron and space stations. And so, he joined up to see the universe, and have adventures, and make friends. He was very eager, very enthusiastic, very excited to be on his way.

Unfortunately, most people don't really like being around someone who's very eager, very enthusiastic, and very excited. Most people find that very annoying. So the making friends thing didn't really pan out all that well.

And as for adventures...mostly, he got hurt. He got shot and sick and hurt. Which...are sort like adventures. Maybe? At least he got to see some of the universe. He also got to see a lot of the medibay.

Then he saw the bottom of Overlord's foot. A few times, actually.

And then? Then, well. Then he died.

And that's where we come in...

A small mech wanders into the Nexus...well, he's small by Cybertronian standards. To the average humanoid, sixteen feet is possibly not that small. It's funny how that works, isn't it?

He looks around, optics bewildered behind their visor shield. "Um," he says after a moment, fingers twisting together with soft metallic whirs. "Um, is this the Afterspark? Cos...this is not at all what I was picturing."

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"Well...I feel decidedly not dead, for one thing." He huffs softly and looks down at Loki. "See, that's what's confusing me. Cos I was...I'm pretty sure I was doing that. Dying. But now here I am very not-dead, with a little fleshling talking to me and things don't make any sense."

"Can I ask what happened," the boy pries, "or... would that be too sensitive, just now?"

He shrugs. It probably is too sensitive, but what's done is done. "I got stomped on. Like, a lot. I know that much. You ever been stomped on? It's all kinds of not fun."

"I have, actually, and I have to admit. As far as fun goes, stomping does as well, but in a different direction--perpendicular at best." The boy hops up on a fragment of wall, balancing on one foot and adopting a "thinking" pose with one hand to his chin, the other arm out for balance. "So, you thought you were dying, and you ended up here. I don't suppose you were doing any sort of exotic travel at the time? Any weird massaging of the fabric of time and space?"

That's an amazing thinking pose. Pipes is duly impressed by it. "I was mostly dragging myself across the floor while trying to keep my spark in my chest. Might've been crying some....uh."

He strikes his own "thinking" pose. "I was on a starship at the time...with one of those whatsit things...quantum engine? Would that be exotic enough, you think?"

"Hmmmmaybe," Loki concedes. "Science isn't really my forte, but 'quantum' is one of those words for 'everything gets weird and we don't really understand it, but it kind of works most of the time,' right?"

He does great thinking poses.

He really, really does. He's actually kind of Pipes's thinking pose hero right now.

"I think so? I dunno. I mostly did reports and got shot at. But that sounds right."

Loki drops from his thinking-pose to perch cross-legged on the narrow top of the wall fragment he's chosen. "Well, then there's a couple possibilities. One is that yes, you're dead, but some great cosmic accident has routed you here instead of your properly destined afterlife. The other is that your method of travel left space a little spongy, and something hit you just hard enough in just the right place to push you through." He pauses as a thought occurs to him, and he admits, "it could also be some third thing I haven't thought of, of course. But whichever, here you are: welcome to the Nexus!"

"The Nexus, huh?" That sounds familiar, but he can't place it at the moment. "Thanks, I guess?"

He sits carefully on the ground, legs splayed in front of him. He'll have to think about this for a minute. "The dying one's probably it. I mean, thinking about it, if you think about it, if it was the one where I didn't die, I'd probably still be all mashed up and stuff, yeah? Seems to me that I would be. But I'm not, see I've got legs and everything! So. So...I died and came here. That sounds...as plausible as anything else that's happened to me, honestly."

"Well, there's an antiviolence field here, and I suppose it's possible it could keep you from feeling hurt--although I don't think that's how it works--but getting new legs sounds a little outside its purview." He considers that for a beat, then adds, "so, my condolences. Wanna catch Pokemon?"

"It's okay, I guess. I just hope everybody else is okay..." He'd done his best, after all. "...I have no idea what a Pokemon is..."

"They're imaginary creatures," the boy explains, "or, well, not so imaginary here." He pulls out a smartphone to hold up to the Cybertronian, displaying the 'mons he's caught. "You find them with your phone, and then catch them, and then raise them to fight!"

"I don't have a phone..." He's not entirely sure what a phone even is. "Wait...you enslave them and make them fight?"

"You're a big robot, though," Loki points out. "Don't you have some sort of computer in you, somewhere?"

That question, which sums up the whole franchise pretty well... "eheheh, it sounds really terrible, put like that. I think the official explanation is, these 'mons want to get stronger, and their best chance of that is working with people, so they try to get themselves noticed. It really does sound like something much more skulduggerous, on first blush. Also, they're imaginary, which is I suppose small comfort." He reaches up to pat something on his shoulder, which isn't there.

"Oh...so, they're not forced to battle for millions of years in a war that turned out to be entirely pointless? Then that's...that's good, then." He frowns slightly, head tilted. "...and I guess I am a big robot, huh? The biggest robot here in this present conversation at any rate. All. All full of computers and the like, which are exactly like phones?" He still doesn't know what a phone is. "...are you petting an imaginary battle creature?"

"Hm?" Loki glances at his hand. "Ah! No. That's Ikol. He's my bird. It's a long story, mostly unpleasant." Look at the smiling child. Don't think about the story about an imaginary bird that is somehow different from the imaginary monsters. "A phone is sort of... oh, mortal technology isn't my strongest point, but it's a little portable computer that talks to other people's portable computers, and lets people talk to each other through them. Using radio waves, or some such." He gives a spooooky finger-waggle. Radioooooo~

"And they can take pictures, and play games, and tell you where you are, and so forth."

“Most long stories are,” Pipes answers. “Unpleasant, I mean.” At least in his experience. He’ll try not to think about it.

His fingers wiggle in an unconscious mimicry of Loki’s. “...oh! Oh, like a communicator!” And the unpleasant thoughts have been lost in the excitement of figuring something out. “And GPS, I have both of those, will those work?”

"One of the tragedies of myth," Loki muses with a sigh, "is the tragedy of myth."

Recognition is a much happier subject. "Yes, communicators and GPS! As for whether it will work, let's find out!" With a poke, Loki turns on his Starkphone's WiFi and holds it up to Pipes. "My phone is trying to talk to other networks. Can you hear me now?"

He tilts his head like a huge metal puppy and listens. Then his optics widen behind their red shield. “I can! At least, I think I can. It’s...different. But I can hear you!” He giggles gleefully. “That’s brilliant!”

Loki grins triumphantly, looking down to his phone again. "Okay, I think I see you, too. I'm gonna try sending you a text."

[Greetings from Asgard!]

"Asgard? Is that your planet? Uh. I mean."

He huffs and goes to text.

[Greetings from my brains I guess. What's Asgard]

Loki grins, throwing a thumbs-up, then texts back. [It's a Realm--planet doesn't quite apply, more a layer of reality. Another dimension, I think, is the term science-types put to it.]

Pipes returns the thumbs up, whirring happy little whirs. [Dimensions, they're just all over the place huh?]

[Oh, tell me about it. We just tripped over a tenth realm, recently. All this time, we'd thought there were only nine. How do you lose a realm?]

[Well you put things in a special place so as not to lose them and then forget where you put them, yeah?]