The Giant slowed down as the tiny robot head spoke to him. He assumed there was a human inside it, judging from the voice. And a young human, at that. He almost sounded like...
The huge metal face looked downcast for a moment as the Giant realized he could not help this boy.
"Don't... know. I... sorry." Then he perked up. "We... become... friends?" He asked.
What is so amusing about this? Why do you take lives? How can you forget?“O-oh.” Simon said, losing some of his fire at the Giant’s sad look. The metal colossus looked like a shoo-in for someone suspicious; the only other Ganman he’d ever seen with a face on top was Viral’s, and that beastman was nothing but bad news. But on closer inspection, this Ganman didn’t even have a face on its torso. What kind of place was this…?
“I-I guess we could.” Simon said, tapping his pointer fingers together at the unexpected offer, only to scramble back to his grips as Lagann dipped in the air. “What’s your name?”
If I had that kind of power, I'd have dropped a meteor on your house ages ago~He paused at that. For all the time it spent with Hogarth and Dean, they only ever called it 'Giant.' But that wasn't a name, it was just a word. So the Giant decided it would have to pick a name for itself. He slowed to a halt and struck the iconic pose - standing tall with his hands at his hips.
"I Superman."
◊ He grabbed Lagann and gently raised the ganmen to head height, looking it (and by extension Simon) in the eye. "Who... you?"
edited 31st Jul '15 12:29:57 PM by kagescorpionakki
What is so amusing about this? Why do you take lives? How can you forget?Simon cocked his head at that, grappling with his indecision. After a moment’s pause, the booster gave out, leaving it supported only by the Giant’s grasp. “I’m, I’m Simon.” The speakers said. “Or really—” The canopy retracted, showing Simon sitting in all his nervous, hopeful glory. “I’m Simon.” He patted the edge of his small red Ganmen. “This is Lagann.” He reached his hand out, before shaking his head and moving one of Lagann’s arms up instead. “It’s nice to meet you, Superman.”
edited 31st Jul '15 12:59:53 PM by Uncandescent
If I had that kind of power, I'd have dropped a meteor on your house ages ago~The more Yuto moved in towards the city center, the more he got confused and started to wonder who or what was responsible for bringing him to this place.
It's probably okay to sit down and figure this out.
"What the?" Yuto had to swerve and move the Valkyrie around when he saw Mazinger Z land right next to Preytor. He was alarmed to see a giant robot appear out of nowhere.
"What the heck is the pilot doing?"
Beachfront, Unit-08
While the command channel rang with increasingly confused voices as the WILLE personnel tried to make sense of the scene in front of them, Mari just sat back in her seat and grinned incredulously. She had no idea what was more surprising - the intact, populated city? The blue - blue! - ocean? The motley assortment of machines standing around the beach? They didn't look like NERV's Evas, at least, or even Angels.
"I'm just gonna head over and make contact." She said, cutting through the chatter and pushing her control sticks forward. Just as she'd hoped, the command crew let her cable reel out behind her - they could have probably held her up by not letting out any slack, but then she would have just ejected the plug anyway and done her introduction on battery power. Chuckling to herself, she started flicking a few controls on her sticks and the projected screens around her.
Huge feet churning up foam in the picturesque blue water, Unit-08 strode towards the shore, returning its pistol to a holster built into its right shoulder pylon. That done, it waved the raised hand, wiggling its fingers in a wave. An open, unencrypted audio-video transmission was broadcast to the other robots on the beach, revealing a girl with red glasses, brown hair and a tight pink-and-white bodysuit mimicking the gesture with a grin. "Is this a private party, or can anyone join?"
“So what do we do?” After a moment’s hesitation, Hook’s own holomatter avatar flickered to life – what looked like a gangly construction foreman wearing a permanent scowl. Out of all the Constructicons, Hook was probably what you’d call the most rational of the Constructicons, although this wasn’t saying all ‘’that’’ much. These days, rational thought among his team mostly involved letting Prowl take the reins, anyhow.
“We let the boss sort it out, that’s what.” Long Haul hadn’t even bothered with the holomatter technology; the dump truck sat in the middle of the street, empty and conspicuous.
Judging by his analysis of the energy signature, there was a 79.9 percent chance that these two law enforcement vehicles were the other Cybertronians the Constructicons had detected earlier. Not great odds, if you were Prowl.
But in this kind of situation, they were decent enough.
Making sure that no humans were paying attention note Prowl transformed and immediately ducked into a nearby alleyway, keeping a watchful eye on the two contacts in case they followed him. Prowl’s newest Earth body was decidedly bulkier than normal, mostly to accommodate the myriad triple-redundant systems and neural interface ports that went with combination technology. In a pinch, though it did allow him to look intimidating, especially if you were on the wrong side of the law – and these days, the “law” tended to be whatever Prowl was currently trying to achieve. There was room for a little jurisdictional wiggle room.
“Autobot or Decepticon?” he asked, keeping his familiar shoulder-mounted weapons trained on the duo. Officially, of course, there was supposed to be peace between the two factions, but every so often you got Decepticon stragglers on backwater worlds who hadn’t yet got the news... or ‘Cons that had got the news and ignored it. It never hurt to be cautious, and yet there was something weirdly familiar about these vehicles. ‘’déjà vu’’, the humans called it. “’’that thing where you see something new and feel like you’ve seen it before”, if you were a Constructicon. “I thought we were trying to get past all that faction stuff,” said Long Haul. “You know, since we all teamed up to-“
Prowl held up a hand in the gesture that roughly 59.67% of sentient species recognized as “for your own good, please shut up.” Long Haul, still in his vehicle mode, obliged.
“Autobot or Decepticon?”
“Maybe they’re ‘Cons,” said the similarly altformed Hook, his engine growling in contemplation. “You know, the crazy diehard ones like the DJD, or…“
Before he could finish, something buzzed in Prowl’s internal communicator. The other half of his team had found something decidedly out of place in an Earth city, and they weren’t at all happy about it. “Boss? Boss! There’s some kind of giant bug thing in the middle of the city and oh slag oh slag oh slag oh slag I think it’s gonna try and eat us. Any backup on the way, boss?”
To quote a piece of human literature involving anthropomorphic lagomorphs and headgear manufacturers: curioser and curioser.
Or to quote the panicked Bonecrusher: “we’re really slagged.”
If Preytor bothered to look down, she’d see a trio of construction vehicles on a nearby avenue, desperately trying to outrun the gigantic insect. The sight was, to be honest, more comical than anything else; bulldozers, excavators and cement mixers aren’t exactly known for their speed, and even with their engines pushed to the limit they could barely tick at anything more impressive than a leisurely stroll. The handful of cars that cruised up and down the streets seemed fairly unimpressed by this bizarre display, although the driver of a grey sedan was more than a little upset when Mixmaster swerved suddenly and wound up putting a fairly impressive dent on the passenger’s side. note
“Keep up, bro!”
“Speak for yourself,” retorted Scavenger, the bulky excavator bringing up the rear, “you’re the one with wheels! You ever tried to outrun a monster on ‘’treads’’?”
And then something huge and red plummeted out of the sky in front of the three hapless ex-Decepticons. Bonecrusher was partway into a good Vosnian swear as he kicked on the brakes, trying to avoid this second invader.
The second tremor that hit the city was more of an aftershock than anything else. Even so, two earthquakes in one day was a decidedly worrisome event for a city as, well, ‘’perfect’’ as Rivermouth City. Weren’t fires and floods and natural disasters things that happened to ‘’other’’ cities? This sort of impudent seismic activity would not promote tourism. A few of the more disgruntled citizens of the city shot the giant machines and monsters as they walked past. This was probably their fault.
A young boy who lived in a beach bungalow on Foxtail Island was sent to his room for telling lies. He claimed to have seen something moving underwater, powering along “like the biggest submarine in the whole world”. This whole idea was, of course, ridiculous, no matter how many times the boy tried to explain himself.
Everybody knew that submarines didn’t exist.
Beachfront
The first one to respond was the Valsione R. Inside of the cockpit, Lune thought the unusual looking mecha reminds her of that crazy Altur Steinbeck fellow, especially when he donned that strange mask and started claiming that he was behind the various wars that rocked the Earth back then. Hopefully, the pilot of the robot speaking to the group on the beach can be trusted much further than she could be thrown.
"I think anyone can join. We're just as lost as you."
Nothing that Amuro said made any sense to Koji. He couldn't make up his mind what to do about him; while he hadn't attacked him yet, his posture -or rather his robot's- was definitely defensive, as if expecting him to attack.
The fact he had a giant monster-bug nearby -although one that had also, strangely, not done anything yet- was not helping his mood.
And then he heard a voice over the radio: "If anyone can hear me, my name is Yuto Kagura. I'm reporting the strange sighting of a bug-like creature in the city. I can't tell if it's a hostile or not."
Now this sounded like someone more logical! "Hi, this is Koji Kabuto" he called back. "I'm piloting the big, black robot in front of the, 'Bug'. I can help fight it if gets hostile. Are you part of the local authorities?"
edited 1st Aug '15 5:30:54 PM by Sijo
Amuro clued in that Koji didn't understand. "To explain, my machine is called a Mobile Suit, developed primarily for Space Combat. It uses it's limbs to rotate itself in space like a astronaut. This is one of the Gundam Line, and one I designed myself using leaked designs."
"It uses a special computer control system that allows me to run the Gundam with my mind and very few computer control imputs. I'm something called a Newtype, best analogue to describe me would be psychic."
Amuro sighed and dug around his seat for a small food bag before continuing, "What do you recall before coming here? The last thing I can recall is trying to stop a old rival from killing Billions on the planet Earth."
Yuto got the most interesting question yet from Kouji.
"I wish I was." The Valkyrie pilot replied. "I was working alongside New United Nations space forces to take out hostile aliens called the Vajra when I got here."
He then observed the Mazinger Z's position.
"Affirmative. I can see your position."
edited 1st Aug '15 8:40:50 PM by Ominae
"Nice... meet... you... too."
The newly christened Superman set the Lagann on his shoulder and turned to look over the city below him.
"We... find... friends." Declared the Giant. "I help. I fast. Hold... on."
He started flying across the city again, moving quicker than before. His great eyes narrowed, targeting systems looking for anything large and metal.
What is so amusing about this? Why do you take lives? How can you forget?Industrial District
"...No way," Streetwise and Groove sent to each other in near-unison. As they watched the transformed Prowl duck into a nearby alley, Streetwise activated his visual transmitter. "Chief, you gotta see this..."
"Alright, what's gotten you two spook - " On the other end of the line, Hot Spot fell silent just as quickly. "Is that......?"
"That's what we're gonna find out," Streetwise replied, following 'Prowl' and his two associates* . Groove followed, but instead opted to hang back a little farther, just at the mouth of the alley. The moment both vehicles were safely 'in' the alleyway, however, 'Prowl' immediately trained his shoulder cannons on Streetwise as punctuation to a typical 'allegiance' question. "Hey hey easy with the firepower!" Streetwise's driver blurted out, the grey car slowly backing away from the tense Cybertronian in front of him by a few feet; behind him, Groove's driver
◊ visibly leaned back in surprise. "If anyone's askin'..."
With a thought, Streetwise's Autobot insignia materialized on his hood. "Now it's my turn to ask a question. Don't be so tense; I'm just transformin'."
Streetwise backed away a few more feet, before himself converting into robot mode. Now 'Prowl' would see the grey 'Bot sporting a neutral look on his face as he gave 'Prowl' the once-over. "Okay, maybe not a question. You've been hitting the upgrade center, Prowl," he said casually, noting that his old ally was now a bit taller than him - almost Hot Spot's height. It'd explain his vehicle mode, that's for sure...
Financial District
Just above the taller of the glass-covered buildings dotting the city's financial district, a red helicopter made its way down south, following the pattern of the streets below - but not without reason. Far below it, in the (surprisingly) sparse streets, a lone white-and-red ambulance raced through, sirens blaring to signal that other vehicles in its path should pull over to allow it to pass.
"Hot Spot was right; something's off about the people around here," First Aid sent to his comrade above.
"How can y'tell?" Blades responded, his tone rather uninterested. "They look the same t'me..."
"It's... hard to explain. The way their faces look, the way they're moving... it looks normal, but there's something beneath the surface that doesn't fit quite right. I think humans called it the 'Uncanny Valley'?..."
"I think you two're overthinkin' this," Blades said. As he rounded the spire of a particularly tall building, something in the distance - very large, and flying in his general direction - caught his sensors. "Now that actually looks 'a little off'!"
The red helicopter put on a burst of speed to close the distance between it and the incoming object. Below, if First Aid was in robot mode, he'd be rolling his head in exasperation; nevertheless, he turned another corner, doing his best to keep up with his comrade in the sky.
Once he was close enough, Blades came to a stop just beside the object's apparent trajectory. This close, it appeared to be a very large gunmetal robot of... archaic design, with what appeared to be a much-smaller, face-sporting robot on its shoulder - and then in that one was... a human boy?
"Yo, Goggle-Eyes!" Blades' holographic pilot announced over his loudspeakers - since they were still in what appeared to be an Earth city, he assumed that the boy was, somehow, controlling the much-larger robot. Inside the helicopter, a helmeted man in a dark-blue pilot suit
◊ visibly had a CB microphone in his hand to keep the appearance up, just in case. "Y'mind touchin' that thing down for a sec?"
edited 2nd Aug '15 1:23:00 AM by Demovere
Lagann’s arms reached down to secure itself to the Giant’s shoulder, while Simon himself glanced at the Giant’s chest compartment. He’d kind of hoped his show of good faith would prompt Superman’s pilot to reveal himself, but maybe that was being unreasonable considering how upside-down their situations had become. For now, he looked up at the Giant’s head as the robot’s ponderous mouth delivered his message, the blue-haired boy privately filed away a few stiff questions. Why did Superman talk like that? Was it a speaker or a species issue? And more pressingly—
“Find them how?” Simon asked, looking around them in confusion. “What do you mean by—” Simon’s question was quickly answered as they blasted off across the city, Lagann clutching desperately at the Giant’s shoulder to hold on. The blue haired boy held on to his grips for dear life, squinting against the rushing wind while slipping his goggles down off the crown of his head to cover his eyes. As he blinked away the wind tears (promise), he mouth let out an unconscious gasp as he was able to appreciate the scope of the city below. The scale was actively baffling to him; as big as those buildings were, as thickly packed as some of those streets became, there had to be as many people here as there were stars in the sky.
As they soared into the Financial District and the visible population dwindled, Simon broke from his transfixed state and pulled himself across Lagann’s cockpit, bracing himself against the side to yell into the Giant’s “ear”. “My brother walks around in a big red robot, with sunglasses!” He yelled. “It has a face like mine, but not a head like yours, and…”
Just then, Simon turned his head as he heard the “pilot” hailing them, furrowing his brow at the strange machine flying without anything that looked like a rocket. “H-hey, hold on.” Simon said, using Lagann to tap the Giant’s shoulder twice. “It looks like someone is trying to talk to us.”
edited 2nd Aug '15 8:25:55 AM by Uncandescent
If I had that kind of power, I'd have dropped a meteor on your house ages ago~-Hearing no footfalls behind him, Tychus keeps going without looking back, certain that the creature isn't after him. Reaching the site with no incident, he returns to the Odin's cockpit and goes through the activation sequence. The building's shell erupts outwards as the Odin unfolds from its transport state, chunks of reinforced concrete bouncing off it without leaving a scratch.-
-The steel giant lurches forward and into the street, leaving pool-sized holes in the tarmac as Tychus heads back to the town's center, eager to bag himself a Zerg trophy.-
"...Streetwise?"
Prowl’s tone was incredulous, verging on what might be even be called hopeful. He and Streetwise had worked together back in the bad old days on Earth after the war, serving under Bumblebee and Ultra Magnus. The two hadn’t exactly hit things off – Streetwise rushed in where Prowl hung back, and vice-versa – but after a few years the duo had managed to find a grudging equilibrium that eventually became a mutual respect... a friendship that had come in handy during a particularly dark chapter in Prowl’s life. He and Streetwise would never be conjunx endurae or anything, but they could work together well when the situation called for it.
But something seemed off since he had last seen the smaller Autobot, just a few days before Streetwise had boarded the Lost Light and left Cybertron. Maybe Streetwise had installed a few mods, or adopted a new altmode or paint scheme... but was there a deeper disconnect there? At any rate, the two Autobots seemed happy enough to see him – maybe a little wary and suspicious, but that was probably the normal attitude to have under these bizarre circumstances. Frankly, Prowl would probably blast the first person who tried to welcome him with open arms.
When Streetwise mentioned upgrades, Prowl looked at himself, holding out one bulky arm, twisting it with idle curiosity. Like he was just seeing it for the fir stime. "You mean, you don't remember what happened with Megatron? I was..." For the first time in a while, Prowl faltered. Recently, a lot of things in Prowl's life seemed to have gone wrong. One particular part of his life he had tried to securely bury away in his mind. The question hung in the air for a few more seconds while Prowl tried to push away the nagging parts of his processor.
Not having control of your motor functions for eight months. Watching an imposter pretend to be you, and commit atrocity after atrocity. Being taken apart, piece by piece, and forcefully turned into a braindead engine of destruction. Sicced on your allies.
"I was... there were a lot of things that happened during those first few months on Cybertron," he finished lamely.
"He's one of us now,” said Hook, affectionately punching Prowl in the shoulder and earning himself a halfhearted eye-roll from the Autobot strategist. "Ain’t that right, boss?"
"Something like that," obliged Prowl as the ex-Decepticon exchanged a fist-bump with Long Haul.
"So we got ourselves a nice little Cybertronian party over here," said Long Haul, lumbering over to Prowl and Streetwise, clapping them on the shoulders with his massive hands. "Which one a’ us brought the energon cubes, huh- ow!" Hook reached up and punched him in the chest with a resounding clang of metal on metal. Prowl had learned that the Constructicons tended to employ a rather physical method of communication among themselves, particularly when they felt the need to emphasize a point. "Long Haul, ya idiot, what about the rest of us?! Said they found a big bug... or somethin’."
"So have either of you been picking up the local radio?” asked Prowl, back to his usual brusque demeanor. "The whole place is going crazy. There are reports of giant machines appearing all over this city. And the really weird thing is that nobody seems to mind… like this is just the kind of thing that goes on every day, or something." Unconsciously, Prowl deployed his handheld rifle, loaded with a fresh supply of armor-piercing acid rounds. He had his shoulder-mounted cannons, and if things got really bad, he could always fall back on Devastator, but there was just something instinctually satisfying about having a freshly-loaded firearm in your own hand. "I don’t even know if they’re all from Cybertron."
"Ah, that’s a load of slag," opined Long Haul, leaning up against the wall of the alleyway as if it were the most natural thing in the world. "How many giant mechs could there be in the universe?"
edited 3rd Aug '15 6:47:44 PM by Locoman
The Giant slowed to a stop, peering at the helicopter. A human vehicle, he recognized. Not a robot. Not Simon's friend. Nonetheless, he didn't want the humans to call their army. That could only end badly. So he slowly lowered himself to the ground.
"Hello... human." He said.
What is so amusing about this? Why do you take lives? How can you forget?Koji was suddenly distracted by the sound of his radar beeping. On its screen, he could see a blip -obviously something large- moving at high speed towards them.
He looked at the sky, and saw yet another huge robot, although a more archaic-looking one, flying over the city.
Not only that, but its appearance caused him to notice several other blips on his screen- most of them on the ground near the sea.
"Looks like we are far from the only people brought here" he radioed to Amuro and Yuto. "We need to find out how- and why!"
edited 3rd Aug '15 7:47:19 PM by Sijo
Industrial District
It was Groove's driver* who visibly cringed when Long Haul walked up to the two police 'Bots and slung his arms over their shoulders like they were old drinking buddies. Streetwise, on the other hand, maintained a mildly confused, but nevertheless casual look as he continued to ponder the situation the two Protectobots found themselves in. As far as we know, the Constructicons are on Chaar with the rest of the exiled Decepticons... Prowl was never this chummy with them - or with most 'Bots, really... and he's......
Prowl's mention of the 'sightings' down south caught Streetwise's audio, and he glanced at the now-taller police 'Bot. "Blades and First Aid are on route to check it out," he said, eyeing Prowl as the other 'Bot deployed his personal firearm, but saying nothing about it. "And knowin' the Chief, he's gonna head out after 'em sooner or later." He idly tapped into the Protectobot sub-frequency and sent a few pings to the base; when he received no response, he internally rolled his head at being almost immediately proven right.
"I know we just ran into each other after Primus-knows how long, but whadaya say about headin' down there too?" Streetwise offered. "Groove and I still have a job to do, and it sounds like your... buddies might need an extra hand." Even he couldn't help but pause a bit when mentioning the Constructicons as any Autobot's 'buddies' - especially someone he knew as regimented and dedicated. 'Someone he knew' being the key word at the moment.
Financial District
Blades was rather surprised - and disappointed - when the metal giant touched down at his request. He lowered his altitude as well, until he was flying just above and in front of the newcomer. "Right... so state yer name, unit designation, and country - or planet - of origin," he asked over the loudspeaker, rattling off the typical questions they asked unfamiliar mechanoids that they encountered on Earth. "Same goes fer the kid on yer shoulder... 'xcept fer the 'planet' part, o'course."
Below them both, First Aid caught up, and the ambulance slowed to a stop several meters away. His holographic driver, a mustached man
◊ in a paramedic's uniform, poked his head and arm out the side of the open ambulance window to get a better view of the impromptu interrogation. There's no human signature coming from that larger robot; could it be from another star system?
It was then that another one of the earlier mecha signals they detected began approaching them at cruising speed. First Aid's driver quickly looked at the direction of the signal's source* and he used their sub-frequency to contact Blades. "There's another incoming, Blades; seems like it's human-piloted."
Blades didn't move yet from where he was hovering, instead using his internal radar to confirm First Aid's report. "Please tell me that one wants to fight," he sent back, his 'voice' carrying a somewhat-worrying tone of excitement.
"Blades..."
"Right, right..."
edited 6th Aug '15 1:59:58 PM by Demovere
For just a second, Simon resisted the idea of telling the man anything, before the boy remembered that he didn’t have anything to hide or be ashamed of. “My name is Simon.” He declared as they descended, falling into a groove of identifying himself to strange people. It was easier now that he had someone with him. “And this is Superman.” Simon said with a smile, as he patted the Giant’s shoulder.
Just then, stray gust of wind brushed by Simon’s head, prompting him to look down and receive a terrifying reminder of their height relative to the cold, hard ground below. Feeling exposed, he subconsciously tightened his hands on his grips, causing his canopy to slide shut over him. “A-and this is Lagann.” said the external speakers, looking for all the world like it was something he meant to show off.
A second passed as Lagann’s cameras booted up, rendering the strange red flying machine in anonymous glory. Taking his mind off the immediate potential danger of the situation, Simon took the opportunity to inspect the newcomer without coming off as rude. The blur above the strange machine transfixed his attention, and if he stared long enough he swore he could make out something spinning at high speeds.
Weird. He thought to himself. But at the very least, these vehicles had visible pilots.
…
Simon’s eyes widened as he realized the obvious. This was the first visible human being to pay him any kind of attention since he got here! If this person was from the city, then he wasn’t going to get a better opportunity to find out what was going on.
“I’m, I’m sorry for the weird question.” Simon’s voice called out, hesitant and tinged with metallic reverberation. “But do you know… where we are?” Having fired the first shot, Simon let momentum carry him through. “I can’t remember coming here, and I can’t find my friends. Superman doesn’t know either, and there’s nothing here I can even start to recognize.” At that moment, Simon picked up on the approaching Valkyrie, and Lagann took a step back. “Things a lot like that…” He said, settling into a low crouch.
edited 6th Aug '15 2:53:31 PM by Uncandescent
If I had that kind of power, I'd have dropped a meteor on your house ages ago~The downtown commute into central Rivermouth was always troublesome at the best of times, but today any commuters making their way into the financial district would have to deal with too many HOV lanes, traffic snarls and a hundred tons of angry mantis thrashing her way through the city. Preytor was still relentlessly working her way through the glassy skyscrapers, her four telephone pole-sized legs scrabbling for purchase as she moved through the city. A truck swerved too close to one of her legs and was instantly pounded into a pancake.
Something seemed to slowly take hold in the minds of the strange citizens lining the streets, penetrating the dense mental fog of whatever-it-was that had momentarily held them prisoner. It was as if they were waking up for the first time, seeing the destruction and carnage that this invader from somewhere else had wrought, and feeling a sudden sense of insignificance. They started to do the only sensible thing in a situation like this: running like hell. People scrambled into nearby towers, vaulted over the slow and indecisive to get into any shelter they could find. Preytor marched steadily onward. What she couldn't simply walk right through she scuttled over. Every so often she paused and twisted her bulbous head toward a sudden motion in a nearby skyscraper. Then she simply snapped one grotesquely elongated claw toward the source of the movement, plucking her unfortunate victim out of a building with an almost nonchalant air. Then her antennae twitched suddenly as she took in the nearby sight of two nearby machines advancing on her. Mantises are territorial, and Preytor was no exception. She changed her tack and began advancing on them, claws outstretched.
"Doesn't look like we have a choice, do we?" said Prowl brusquely, flipping his rifle over in his hands. "Something big is going on here. Maybe bigger than all of us." With that, the Autobot was back in his alternate mode, diesel engine growling as he clicked on his sirens. In another few seconds he was joined by Hook as the two peeled out; Long Haul hung behind with the two other Autobots, looming over them.
"So how you guys been holding up?" he asked, kicking an old trash can out of the way as he prepared to transform and- well, maybe not "roll out." He wasn't ready to go that far. Maybe just follow the boss. "This kinda thing happen to Autobots a lot? 'Cause if being an Autobot involves stuff like this... I ain't sure I want in."
edited 6th Aug '15 8:03:51 PM by Locoman

The source of the voice is a gigantic pink-haired green-eyed woman in armor on the beachfront. The joints in the arms, fingers and feet give away the fact that the woman is a robot. It seems she doesn't want to involve herself in a potential conflict for now.