re_alignment | [video]

Entry tags:

tf: idw | drift

[video]

Wing's taken over the investigation for Vandal. He's faster, smarter, and a member of the Law Committee. I think it's time we agree and admit this is a crime and not a disappearance, anyway.

[Also, Wing didn't die recently. That, uh, probably helps his CV, too.]

Going out into the Badlands. There's...something I need to find out there.

[He hesitates, then locks the feed from Wing.]

Anyone come back, and, uh, remember things? That they haven't lived through?

....like Theophany?

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He wasn't just anyone. He was my only friend. And...[Drift shakes his head.]

I guess I was wrong about that, too.

Did he deny your friendship?

[He does have a slight worry that Drift doesn't fully intend to come back from going out there, so he is hoping to lessen the weight on the mech's processor just a little.]

...I don't know. Something happened out there between us. Maybe I can, I don't know, find a clue.

Perhaps, I hope you find something that gives you some understanding, even if it may not be what you hope to find.

Everything happens for a reason. Everything means something. I just need to, I guess, be open to what it is.

Just be careful not to try too hard to understand things that are too large to grasp just yet. I've seen that lead a mech to madness, or maybe he did reach it, but it still seemed what he found was more than he could handle.

I honestly don't see that we have much choice. Everything here just seems to defy comprehension.

...what happened to him?

We always have a choice in how we handle things, we can resist, or even just follow the movement of things. But we always have a choice in how we react.

That mech has become known as Optimus Prime, already drunk on the idea of power he fell further into insanity. Anymore there is little possibility he will ever listen to reason and he consistently is thrilled to cause destruction, even among his own forces.

It's knowing the right thing that's the problem.

[It's strange to think about Optimus Prime as insane, drunk on power.]

And yet he has loyal followers? [He wonders if he would have followed this Optimus.]

Some times the right thing isn't so much about what we choose, but that we choose for ourselves.

He has followers, yes, some loyal to the power he touts, some loyal to their lives which they would lose if they left him, and some loyal to their chance to claim his position for themselves. I have never heard of an Autobot in my world that was truly loyal to Optimus Prime as their leader, not the way I have heard of Autobots from universes like your own being.

I wonder, sometimes, if that's part of why we're here. [He rubs a hand along his nasal.] I mean, either it's entirely coincidence that we were chosen, or it's not. And if we were chosen, was it for this place or for ourselves?

[And now Megatron might guess how Vector must feel every time Drift tries to grill him.]

Sounds like our Megatron. But some of us were true believers, because we wanted a better Cybertron. Your Optimus.... [He shakes his head.] I can't think he wants that.

If we are chosen, can't it be for both? I am sure we can all learn something from this place, and at the same time, we all offer something by being here, even if it doesn't seem that way.

[Having been a teacher Megatron loves being asked questions, and asking questions right back.]

I don't know if he even knows what he wants anymore. I... like to believe that once, in the beginnings of the war, he wanted to make the world better, but that fell by the wayside as some greater goal made itself known in his mind. One no one has ever fully understood.

If any of the previous ones who had come here had gone home or, I don't know, something, maybe.

[Someone's been talking to Vector.]

Power does that, I think. When violence is your means, it becomes...really hard to let go.

[Megatron nods, it is hard to tell what has happened to those that aren't around anymore, but at the same time, he wants to hope for the best.]

Power seems to be something that many people define themselves by.

I can see why. I used to, too.

Now, it's just...killing is all I can do, and it doesn't seem like enough.

Somehow I find the idea that killing is all you can do being doubtful. Fighting, perhaps but that can be used for positive as much as it can for negative. Just like a weapon, fighting is neither good nor bad, it is how and why it is used that determines those things.

Have you considered trying to learn something new to do? Something to develop in order to prove to yourself you can do more?

I kind of hope we need less of it, now that the war's over.

I'm trying to learn first aid. [From, uh, First Aid. Go figure.]

I can agree that it would be nice if it became a less needed skill.

That is a useful skill to have, especially in our current environment.

I don't know if that can happen, though.

[Still, it would be nice.]

It's a lot harder than it looks.

Hopefully, even if the need for fighting does not go away, the need to do so against other mechs does, even if slowly.

[He recognizes that a sudden termination of any war is statistically unlikely. Even with a victor and a loser there is likely to still be contention.]

It can be, but the best things to learn are the ones we have to work the most at.

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