I'm getting Nightmare Before Christmas vibes, here.

[heroindisguise]

Characters: Optimus Prime, anyone who's around. (Open)
Content: A lonely cruise leads Optimus to the center of Iacon, where a bizarre sight awaits.
Location: Iacon center
Time of day: Late night
Warnings: None yet.
Status: Active.

Comments

[see_my_cannons]

As unsettling as being transported against his will and without his knowledge to the Cybertron was, Ironhide had surprisingly few complaints at the moment. As far as he was concerned, all was right with the world for the moment

[chromefatale]

Chromia was quite enjoying herself here. She had come to accept that not everything was what it seemed, and there really wasn't anything she could do to undo her situation, seeing as she was dead. So the usually uptight femme decided to make the best of it.

And right now, the best of it was riding on her mate towards who knew what. She knelt, in her own fashion, in the bed of his alt mode, elbows propped on the roof of his cab as she watched ahead of them casually, rather than tensed as she usually would. The Decepticons here seemed harmless, or inactive, even though some of the other strange Autobots at the base reported being attacked.

She instinctively tensed a bit when Ironhide announced their approach, her back straightening just a bit so she could see further, her body alert. But what they saw...

"What are those?" she asked when the first pumpkin came into sight, her head cocked to one side as she looked at the brightly colored oddities.

[whichpocket]

"Those are pumpkins," Will spoke up over their comm line as he peered out the windshield, confusion plastered all over his face. "Vegetables that we grow back on Earth. What the hell are they doing here?"

Of all the crazy things Will had seen thus far on the planet, this took the cake. It was pretty obvious that organic things could not grow normally on Cybertron but yet here were tons of pumpkins growing like there was nothing to hinder them.

"'Hide slow down, I want to hop out," he said, absently tapping the steering wheel as he slid over closer to the passenger side door, slinging his gun strap over his shoulders. "I want to see if they're real pumpkins or not."

[see_my_cannons]

"Pumpkins." Of course. Why not. First random Bots and Cons, then a human or two, now, random human vegetables. Why, the slag, not. "Probably the same thing we're doing here," he mused with a wary snort. "Their travel agent fragged up, too."

Why did he suddenly have a bad feeling that his nice, fresh polish was going to end up slagged before the night was over? And not in a fun, blow-the-crap-outta-something-fun way, but a covered-in-annoying-organic-goo way?

Vegetables meant food, though, and so, with little more than a suspicious grumble, he obeyed Will's direction, rolling to a stop far enough back that Chromia could cover Lennox if needed, but not so far as to leave the major dangling if it all went to slag. "Anything out there, Chromia?"

No sense taking any stupid chances, though.

[chromefatale]

Chromia hopped out of Ironhide's bed as Lennox exited the cab, following beside him a few feet away. If anything were to happen, she wanted to make sure he was covered, and Ironhide would be too slow.

"Yes," she responded dryly to her mate, "lots and lots of pumpkins."

She hadn't been on Earth as long as Ironhide had, so aside from the thought that these were probably human food, she had no idea what to make of the odd orange orbs.

Then something triggered her sensors. "Incoming!" she hissed, closing the space between herself and Will so she could stand in front of him, cannons singing to life, just as Optimus and Hot Rod came into view.

A small sigh of relief escaped her vents as she identified them, lowing her cannon as it powered down.

[heroindisguise]

Optimus had been ready to tackle any Decepticon wandering in the neighbourhood, as usual, but upon seeing who they were dealing with he relaxed, lowering his rifle and waving a hand in amicable greeting as he walked closer. "Allies," he called out, just in case, "it's safe here."

He wasn't exactly familiar with these 'bots yet, but he'd seen them on base - there was no doubt that despite looking different from the Ironhide and Chromia he knew, they were on the same side.

"We're in luck today," he noted, to Hot Rod as much as himself.

[yougotthekeys]

Hot Rod had seen the bots they found around base briefly but he hadn't really paid them or their human counterpart much mind but looking at them now, more attentively, the oddities about them stood out like a sore thumb.

"Werid frames," he muttered to himself as he moved along beside Prime, the weapon he had pulled from subspace disappearing once more as he lifted a hand in greeting as well. "Seems like it."

Part of him was a bit sad though; he'd kinda been hoping to find one of those slugs he'd heard the others talk about.

[whichpocket]

Will moved back a few steps as Chromia got in front of him, swinging his rifle around to ready himself--

Only to find that those approaching were friendlies.

Like Chromia the Major lowered his weapon some but kept it in hand for now, stepping around his protector to look the two over.

"...I'm getting the feeling that Optimus' generally look the same," he mused quietly over his comm to his Autobot comrades, looking the slightly shorter bot next to Optimus over but not recognizing anything about him. "Any idea who that one is?" Will lifted one hand in a quick salute type greeting as the pair drew closer, sticking closer to Chromia for the time being all the same.

[see_my_cannons]

By the time he'd have been able to transform and bring his weapons to bear, Chromia had already covered Will and verified that the others were friendlies. With a familiar whirring and clacking of shifting parts, Ironhide rose into his root mode, rolling his shoulders and shaking out his arms and the huge cannons mounted there as he leisurely stepped forward to join his partners. "Hn. Seems like," he murmured to Lennox.

Now, if only the same thing could be said of Ironhides... Fragging milk truck.

"No. Doesn't look familiar," he added, raising one hand to wave politely across the distance to Optimus and his companion. "Greetings!" he called.

The thick scent of organic molecules filled his olfactory sensors, and he sniffed loudly. "Smells real enough." Mostly. Not that Ironhide had any real experience with pumpkins to say if they were real, but they certainly smelled organic. Stepping forward, he nudged one with one foot, arching a toe to crack it open. Pumpkin guts squished against his "toe

[chromefatale]

"You think they look the same?" Chromia asked, confusion in her voice. She openly appraised the Optimus Prime that was approaching them, noting the similarities and differences. "I suppose I can see it a little bit..." The question made her wonder if Will thought all robots looked alike.

Her attention then turned to Hot Rod and she looked him over in much the same manner. "I think I heard his designation back at base as 'Rodimus'?" Little did she realize that she was now guilty of what she had just mental accused Will of.

Ironhide drew back the subject of the pumpkins once more, and she looked down at the nearest one, giving it a quick scan.

[heroindisguise]

Optimus was pretty oblivious to the entire debate, but was doing some observing of his own, hoping to be discreet but unable to completely dissimulate his curiosity. He had yet to see these mechs up close and their foreign frames were certainly fascinating, in a bizarre way.

Definitely no doubt anymore on the multi-verse theory.

Finally walking up close to the trio, he nodded to Chromia and Ironhide, before directing a salute to their human companion as well.

"Good to see more allies," he sincerely said, "I wouldn't have been surprised if this bit of Earth oddity-" he gestured at the pumpkin patch, "-had attracted some Decepticons as well."

[subcdrkissbot]

Duties temporarily completed at his base protection location, Inferno had wandered out into the night in hopes for information on the location of his Queen.
Not that he did not trust the purple cyclops's Queen, but when his own was in danger there was no time to rest or wait.

He was prepared to find just about anything; Traitors, Spies, The Royalty, you name it. Inferno was, however, not expecting to find an army of small orange globes. Unlike most of the landscape he'd encountered so far, these organic creatures were even small to his own frame. And there were so many! A small undercover army, perhaps. Maybe even these circle beasts knew where the 'Autobots' were keeping his Royalt--

Robotic fist already halfway through one of their shells for interrogation purposes, Inferno heard a noise and turned to spot one... no, four. Four Autobot enemies and a smaller organic several feet away. Luckily the Insecticon had dragged his stolen rifle along for the journey, and he heaved it up to rest on top of a particularly ugly gourd

[yougotthekeys]

"Knowing the Decepticons though they probably would have just started destroying things," Hot Rod mused, looking over Ironhide then Chromia and finally Will. "You guys are all from the same universe right? Would make sense considering you're hanging out together."

Now that he thought about it, he had seen them all sticking pretty close together back at the base too.

"Name's Hot Rod by the way!" He wasn't sure if they had a Hot Rod where they were from but hey! Why not introduce himself properly? Something caught on his sensors that caused the younger mech to pause, glancing down at the ground before he glanced briefly over his shoulder. "There's someone else here."

[whichpocket]

Will snickered a bit.

"Nature's little joke on you Cybertronians I guess," he commented back to Ironhide, gaze going to Chromia. "It's mostly that presence they have about them. I mean, look at the way he carries himself. Very Optimus like." Letting his companions amuse themselves with the pumpkins for a bit more, Will directed his attention to the newcomers, lowering his weapon as he rested an arm over it.

"I have half a mind to think that they'll still show up. That or more slugs. You'd like that though, wouldn't you 'Hide?" Will mused, glancing at the bot he was addressing. "Nice to meet you--" As he turned his head to look at the others again he caught Hot Rod's pause, eyebrow lifting. It all made sense though when the brightly colored Cybertonian mentioned they won't alone, Will immediately backing up to get closer to his companions, looking around for any sign of who Hot Rod was referring to.

"'Hide? Chromia?"

[see_my_cannons]

// Picture what ours would be in one of those odd, blocky frames, // Ironhide offere Chromia privately, switching to radio so as not to offend the approaching mechs. // Don't forget, he doesn't have our sensors. If all you had were visuals, how distinctive would Lennox be to you, compared to any number of the other several billion of his kind that exist

[chromefatale]

The blue femme's cannons were also whirring to life alongside her mate's as she pushed her sensors for a wide-area sweep, getting into position to cover Lennox as well. When they had first been introduced to the humans and been ordered to protect them, Chromia had found her duty to be the shield annoying, and there were some humans she still felt this way about. Will, however, had proven his worth, and she would gladly get in the line of fire to protect him any day.

"Three in the vicinity, two incoming, one immobile," she reported the findings of her scans, pointing towards the location she had picked up Inferno's signature, and then to where she expected the other two to come into view.

Well, maybe they'd get to see what these other strange bots were made of today. They certainly had high expectations to live up to, at least Optimus Prime did.