[video] Enter the Fanboy

[cerebroshellshocked]

[The video feed pops on, to a slightly breathless sounding voice and a worried pair of blue optics.]

...must have gotten knocked out.

Perceptor?  Verity?    Springer?  A-anyone? 

[He tries to make his voice sound a little calmer, a little less unnerved. ]

I'm okay. Something must've, uh, hit me on the head or something.

[Not, you know, the passing out thing. Of course not]

Tell me it's over.

Tell me...we won.

...

Tell me I'm not alone.

Comments

well that means you're an amazing player. :D

[cerebroshellshocked]

It sounds like fun.

[Maybe. He's not sure anymore. He'd thought the Wreckers would be more fun, too.]

We broke the Matrix? You can't break an ancient artifact. I mean, that's like...against every rule in stories ever!

[But those were just stories. He stifles his outburst, sheepishly. ]

Oh. Yeah, I mean, Whirl is... Whirl.

[Kerblink.] I'm not sure? [But he does have a headache now from trying to untangle that.] What, uh, what were you thinking about?

adshaghs

[chatterbot]

Yeah, tell me about it. I guess it's the same with stories and quests. Sometimes life doesn't get to be like stories, and it's just plain ol' life, with all the bumps and falls. Kinda learning that the longer I'm on the Lost Light.

[Mistakes get made and everyone gets to feel like the worst heap of scrap this side of the Milky Way.]

Hmm... How do I put this delicately? [THIS IS SO HARD. UGH.] Do you remember leaving a message behind before you left for the Wreckers? One set to go out on the Wreckers: Declassified feed?

[cerebroshellshocked]

Yes. I know. Life isn't like stories.

[A sigh.] I wish it was.

Oh. So. I did die. [Shouldn't be this much of a shock, should it? ] Yes. I remember. But that wasn't about what I could do to Overlord.

[That was about a broken friendship. Overlord was about broken ideals.]

[chatterbot]

Yeah. Sorry 'bout that. Someone else woulda told you a bit more carefully. Maybe Perceptor? Buuuut... [A sheepish shrug. This goes back to that life thing they were talking about. Prepare to drastically lower your expectations.]

So what can you do about him? Or is it classified? [Like that would stop him from badgering you incessantly, Ironfist.]

[cerebroshellshocked]

No, no. It's...I always knew it was going to happen.

So. Uh. [He looks really uncomfortable, but he has to know.] Skyfall?

I, um, Garrus 9 had these things called deterrence chips. [He doesn't want to go into more detail right now. Still kind of reeling about being dead.]

[chatterbot]

Deterrence chips? Not exactly familiar with the prison system, but I'm familiar with 'em. Easy enough to guess what they do.

And you sorta explained it. You as in future you. Still, wish we coulda done something to help. Maybe fix it? [He's not gonna say that he wishes Ironfist would have told them. It's not like he needs to explain himself while he's still dealing with being dead.]

Is it still... y'know. Even here?

Skyfall, uh... He died. Cornered in your office. He found some Gideon's Glue and drank it.

[cerebroshellshocked]

They, uh, they explode. [No guess necessary.]

I just...what could I have done? He was my friend. And by the time I even...well, Babu Yar had already happened.

[It. It could only be one thing.] Yes. Why wouldn't it be?

......._Oh.. [He'd expected some satisfaction, some closure. Because that's what always happened in stories, right? Good triumphed, justice was done and everything got better.]

[Nothing felt better. It just felt...sadder.]

THE MOST WORST AT HELPING

[chatterbot]

[Whatever constitutes for a surprised eyebrow raise for mechs with visors, Swerve is pulling it off.] Well. That's useful.

Yeah. Well the FirstForged can probably do something about it, and I doubt anyone'll say you don't deserve it.

[He wasn't exactly expecting Ironfist to take that well. If he's honest, he wasn't sure what to expect from him a lot of the time. He always seemed wrapped up in Wreckers mythology, weapon designing, and apparently having a bullet tunneling towards his brain module.]

I'm probably the last person who should be telling you this, but it's better to feel responsible for something, to at least figure you did something wrong, than to just feel nothing. You did all you could to keep that stuff outta 'con hands. Skyfall... he made his choices and he didn't even feel anything. You're not really responsible for the choices he made, ya know? So at least you've got that. Don't know if that helps but... there you go.

[Okay. Now how does he change the subject without it feeling awkward and clunky, as far as conversations go?]

*clings to him anyway*

[cerebroshellshocked]

[Swerve is of course pulling it off: it is one of his many talents. As is talking without the need to breathe.]

It was effective, I guess. [He's not happy with it either. Shouldn't Autobots be the good guys, not the guys planting remote trigger bombs in people's heads?]

....I don't.

It doesn't help. Because I didn't even report him when I knew.

[Emo-moebot is emo. ]

*pets presh emo bot* there there buddy

[chatterbot]

[Things that got him through the Academy.]

Effective is one word for it. [Violation of basic cybertronian rights is another, though it's more like a phrase.] Not that I'm objecting to Overlord having a few in him.

What would you've said? You didn't have proof at the time, and he tried to set you up.

[You stop that.]

*clings like a spidermonkey*

[cerebroshellshocked]

No. I mean, if we have to have them and they have to be used, better on him than anyone else.

But maybe I would have seen it if I hadn't been so blind.

...he did more than try to set me up. [The whole malfunction. It had been harder to hear that than that he'd basically gotten a death sentence. One was bad luck, the other was just...betrayal.]

But I guess that doesn't matter here, right? [He's trying, look at him!]

shh shh it's okay

[chatterbot]

Yeah, you explained that too. In the message, I mean. Used to find it hard to believe he did all that for a lab. [But it turns out some people are just terrible and sociopathic. He doesn't know why this is such a sudden revelation to him.]

But that's be right, there. That kinda stuff is a bit on the backburner here. It only matters as much as you or anyone else is willing to let it. Not like anyone's gonna hold it against you if you don't wanna let it go, though. [At least, he won't.]

[cerebroshellshocked]

I...I thought we were like...actual friends. [And he feels so stupid for it.]

[Swerve isn't a lifelong fanboy geek who has never had actual friends and tried to fill the void with memorabilia.]

I don't want to, but, well....

....there's something in my head.

[chatterbot]

No one knew he was capable of that. Don't feel bad about it.

[Ironfist you're coming off like the saddest little robopuppy and Swerve is so clueless as to how to make you feel better.]

Wait... which something are we talking about here? The deadly something?

[cerebroshellshocked]

I do. Because it was wrong. All of it. I guess I thought I was brave for protecting him from his own actions.

[Ironfist really is. It's sad how sad he is.]

The, uh, the Aequitas something.

[chatterbot]

[It is sad. It's so sad that Swerve can't even manage a reply to that, other than a few open-close mouth motions. He wants to make Ironfist feel better, but he's not sure how, and he's not even sure the other mech wants to feel better anyway, so he just doesn't say anything about that.]

Aequitas? [He's gotta scan though that particular W:D thing in his memory banks, but then his eyeride gives the impression of widening optics behind his visor.] Oooooooh.

[cerebroshellshocked]

[Ironfist can feel the sad. And the really, really unnatural silence. ]

Yes. And I know the truth now, everything we've done.

Everything I've done.

[He looks aside.] We kill people. Just as much as any front line mech. We just tell ourselves we're better.

[chatterbot]

[He can't really say he feels the same, considering his line of work, but that's really the truth of it all. They were apart of the war effort, and that meant doing science that would be used to kill other mechs. Just one more cog in the ever moving machine.

He sighs and slumps a bit.]

Yeah, there's really no denying that, is there?

[cerebroshellshocked]

[War was necessary, but it was evil. He thought of it each time he lost another friend and it hurt less and less.]

No. But we do anyway.
[Anyway, enough awkward? He hopes.] So, here, no war? No fighting?

[chatterbot]

Yeah...

[Oh, are we changing the subject now? Thank Primus.]

Yup! No war or fighting or anything. We've got a whole committee to keep it from happening. I mean, there've been a few incidents, but that's not really anyone's fault. Except the ones who started it, obviously. But there hasn't been anything large scale.

[cerebroshellshocked]

That sounds...really nice. D-do you need scientists?

[chatterbot]

I'm not really sure? I just bartend down at Wing's bar. It's kind of a thing I decided to take up after the war a while ago. Me an' Blurr had planned a thing, but it was kind of stupid in retrospect. So I was doing it on the Lost Light, and now I'm doing it here.