(no subject)
[Despite Sideswipe's insistence that he stay off the network, Sunstreaker has decided to disobey his friend and links up, anyway. ...only he's pretending not aware he's logged in as he makes his way into a large building in the Eastern District. One can probably assume Sideswipe is somewhere outside.]
[The camera angle is Sunstreaker's own view as he enters a darkened garage through a door sized for his kind. Pulling the door shut behind him after finding a light switch, he glances around, noting the shelves along the walls containing a number of car care products and cleaning rags. There are a few Cybertronian-sized pieces of furniture off to one side, as well as some identical furniture at human size. A door in the back leads into another section of the building from the look of it, but it's meant for a human.]
Only big building like this in this area. Gotta mean something. [He walks up to a set of shelves, eying the cans of car wax.] And this looks like stuff I'd like to keep around... But what's with all the tiny furniture?
Meow...?
[The Autobot glances down by his feet to see...an almost entirely black cat staring up at him.] Er. You live here?
[The cat purrs and rubs up against Sunstreaker's ankles. The mech is suddenly struck with two feelings at once... He's somehow pleased with the feline and, at the same time, filled with a sense of dread that it might claw up his interior. What the slag?]
[He walks over to the human-sized furniture (careful not to step on the cat in the process) and looks over some data pads on the desk. Next to them all is a large framed photograph big enough for him to pick up. It's an image of three humans... Two males and one female. One of the guys is dressed like a mechanic, his arm around the shoulders of a young man with orangish-red hair and wearing a green t-shirt. The young woman in the photo has her arm around the man in green, the three positioned so that he's front and center.]
[Sunstreaker tilts his head, frowning. He lightly taps the frame with one finger.] I...know them. Somehow, I... So familiar.
[The cat meows again.]
[Sunstreaker stares at the young man in the middle of the group. And at that moment...he knows he's looking at himself. ...but how? He's not human!]
[Suddenly, something hits him from the network. Hard. Dropping the framed photo to the ground, the glass shattering on impact, Sunstreaker grabs at the side of his head as he starts to short out. The pain is intense, the sound of his own circuits reaching toward overload buzzing in his audio receptors. Red flares across his vision, systems warning of an impending crash.]
[WARNING: EMERGENCY STASIS IMMINENT.]
R-Rion!
[As Sunstreaker falls to one knee, barely holding in a scream, images flash rapidly across his vision and thus, across the network.]
[Sideswipe. His Sideswipe. Optimus Prime. Megatron. The face of Scorponok. Ultra Magnus and the Dinobots. Starscream. The deal made, the deal broken... Devastator. The return to Cybertron... Ratchet and Wheeljack working on the broken body of Optimus Prime. Prowl, Jazz, Mirage, Bumblebee, Tracks... Ironhide! The Wreckers. The Wreckers...and Kup... A thousand hideous, metallic, insectoid faces... THE SWARM. The bridge... The blast. Falling...
Falling...
A family of four at a house in Tulsa. A funeral. A woman slouched drunkenly over a kitchen table. Arguments with a young woman. Doors slamming. ”You can't leave us, not now! Mom needs us!” “She doesn't need us, she wants more booze!” Lost. Alone. ...another funeral. Leaving Tulsa. Highway 17 in Arizona. Picking up a hitchhiker? That young woman from the photo! Ambulance... Ratchet! Fleeing, fighting... The mechanic. The Ark. The Machination. Falling...
Falling...
Nautilus. Another Prime. Another Prowl. Megatron? Southern...Western... The dojo. GLaDOS. Crawford. Wreck-Gar. Wasp... Was he...singing? The Enrichment Center, trashed. ...wolf...fox... ISIS. Into the City of Glass. The Horrors. The Great Hall. Ironhide, what are you--? STATIC. Sideswipe...we're--I'm--falling...
...falling...
...down...
“United we stand.”
“Divide we--”]
Fall.
[Sunstreaker hits the ground. The cat runs for the door.]
M-Mulder...goddamn c-c-cat...
[The camera angle is Sunstreaker's own view as he enters a darkened garage through a door sized for his kind. Pulling the door shut behind him after finding a light switch, he glances around, noting the shelves along the walls containing a number of car care products and cleaning rags. There are a few Cybertronian-sized pieces of furniture off to one side, as well as some identical furniture at human size. A door in the back leads into another section of the building from the look of it, but it's meant for a human.]
Only big building like this in this area. Gotta mean something. [He walks up to a set of shelves, eying the cans of car wax.] And this looks like stuff I'd like to keep around... But what's with all the tiny furniture?
Meow...?
[The Autobot glances down by his feet to see...an almost entirely black cat staring up at him.] Er. You live here?
[The cat purrs and rubs up against Sunstreaker's ankles. The mech is suddenly struck with two feelings at once... He's somehow pleased with the feline and, at the same time, filled with a sense of dread that it might claw up his interior. What the slag?]
[He walks over to the human-sized furniture (careful not to step on the cat in the process) and looks over some data pads on the desk. Next to them all is a large framed photograph big enough for him to pick up. It's an image of three humans... Two males and one female. One of the guys is dressed like a mechanic, his arm around the shoulders of a young man with orangish-red hair and wearing a green t-shirt. The young woman in the photo has her arm around the man in green, the three positioned so that he's front and center.]
[Sunstreaker tilts his head, frowning. He lightly taps the frame with one finger.] I...know them. Somehow, I... So familiar.
[The cat meows again.]
[Sunstreaker stares at the young man in the middle of the group. And at that moment...he knows he's looking at himself. ...but how? He's not human!]
[Suddenly, something hits him from the network. Hard. Dropping the framed photo to the ground, the glass shattering on impact, Sunstreaker grabs at the side of his head as he starts to short out. The pain is intense, the sound of his own circuits reaching toward overload buzzing in his audio receptors. Red flares across his vision, systems warning of an impending crash.]
[WARNING: EMERGENCY STASIS IMMINENT.]
R-Rion!
[As Sunstreaker falls to one knee, barely holding in a scream, images flash rapidly across his vision and thus, across the network.]
[Sideswipe. His Sideswipe. Optimus Prime. Megatron. The face of Scorponok. Ultra Magnus and the Dinobots. Starscream. The deal made, the deal broken... Devastator. The return to Cybertron... Ratchet and Wheeljack working on the broken body of Optimus Prime. Prowl, Jazz, Mirage, Bumblebee, Tracks... Ironhide! The Wreckers. The Wreckers...and Kup... A thousand hideous, metallic, insectoid faces... THE SWARM. The bridge... The blast. Falling...
Falling...
A family of four at a house in Tulsa. A funeral. A woman slouched drunkenly over a kitchen table. Arguments with a young woman. Doors slamming. ”You can't leave us, not now! Mom needs us!” “She doesn't need us, she wants more booze!” Lost. Alone. ...another funeral. Leaving Tulsa. Highway 17 in Arizona. Picking up a hitchhiker? That young woman from the photo! Ambulance... Ratchet! Fleeing, fighting... The mechanic. The Ark. The Machination. Falling...
Falling...
Nautilus. Another Prime. Another Prowl. Megatron? Southern...Western... The dojo. GLaDOS. Crawford. Wreck-Gar. Wasp... Was he...singing? The Enrichment Center, trashed. ...wolf...fox... ISIS. Into the City of Glass. The Horrors. The Great Hall. Ironhide, what are you--? STATIC. Sideswipe...we're--I'm--falling...
...falling...
...down...
“United we stand.”
“Divide we--”]
Fall.
[Sunstreaker hits the ground. The cat runs for the door.]
M-Mulder...goddamn c-c-cat...