Shatterverse Panfandom RP

In southern central Oregon, a volcano is erupting.

Not particularly explosively; in fact, all it's really doing is majestically trickling lava down its sides in picturesque fashion. The volcano is called Mount Saint Hilary, but in this universe, the most interesting thing about it is that it's a volcano-- and a volcano on the Pacific Ring of Fire really isn't a terribly interesting thing at all, from a geological standpoint.

But it is important to note that Mt. St. Hilary is there, for the ambiance of the thing.

It is also important to note that Mt. St. Hilary is part of a larger landscape, one that, like much of the world these days, has acquired some interesting new fauna. The mountain rises up as part of a range of mountains and hills, of course, which are covered in vegetation. The vegetation is quite good for grazing, and the grazing animals are quite good for hunting.

A half-grown hadrosaur has wandered away from its herd, seeking greener greens or perhaps just being inattentive. Today, in the shadow of the smoking mountain, is not a good day to leave the safety of the herd. The hadrosaur stills for a moment, peering into the brush, then casts for scent. It hears a rustle, and sees a long, thin snout breaking through the leaves. Perhaps it hasn't been spotted. Perhaps if it slowly turns back the way it came, it will be safe. Perhaps if it bolts, now, it will have a chance to outrun the predator behind it.

Or perhaps it will find its path blocked by two more of the things, snarling challenges at the youngster, heavy claws twitching in anticpation. The third slips out of the brush silently, closing off any hope of escape for the young hadrosaur-- all it can do is bleat, calling for its mother, its herd, warning of danger.

The trio strikes, not wanting to lose their kill in case something too large to make an easy meal of should show up to defend the youngster. Low under the hadrosaur's squealing, under even the raptors' snarls and and growls, there is a rumble, like distant thunder or a shift within the volcano. One of the raptors raises his head-- he hears the sound, but doesn't know what it means.

Raptors are bright animals indeed. This new hunting ground has danger, even for them. He is wary, though his companions tear into their prey, strong claws stabbing into its throat and finally turning its bleating to burbling, then to gasping, and then there is nothing but cooling meat.

But over the cooling meat comes a sudden bright white light, and the raptors snarl at the startle, at the sudden pain to their eyes, at the interruption of lunch.

At the tangle of not-meat which has been unceremoniously dumped onto their kill.

"What the frag?" demands an alarmed voice, but not in a language the raptors know. "How did-- where--" A heavy, blocky head raises up suddenly, looking from one toothy snout to the next. It does not smell like prey, but it is on their kill, which is remarkably similar to stealing their kill. "... Nice... thingies... Bah weep grah nah weep nini bong?" it offers, slowly rising.

The raptors do not like this, and almost as one drop to more offensive poses, rearing back to strike at the interloper.

The interloper, for his part, says, "Oh, frag this," and flings himself away from the dead hadrosaur, from the raptors who are still oriented on him. "Thrust, overdrive!" and what had been a mostly vertical shape twists once and folds down into a horizontal one, with two wheels and a low growl like a predator.

The raptors growl at the sound, but the rear wheel kicks up dust and the interloper does the smartest thing an interloper could do-- he flees.

After a moment of snapping at each other and testing the air, the raptors return to their kill.

---

Thrust isn't a coward. He's not. Just because the predators aren't the only freaky organics around, just because some of the quadrapeds are large enough to flatten him by accidentally stepping on him, just because he caught sight of one really really big biped shaking an organic until its internal support structure disconnected in several places doesn't mean that Thrust can't take them.

It's just that there are a lot of them, and only one of him.

And he's pretty sure this isn't Cybertron. He can tell, you see, by the active volcano. And the distinct lack of city. And the color of the atmosphere. And all the organic everything everywhere.

Maybe he's in the CR chamber and dreaming, or hallucinating. Maybe this is some buried memory he's reliving while in recharge. It's sure weird enough to be a dream. But stopping, trying to wake up, doesn't do a slagging thing, and honestly the world scans real enough. But where is he and how did he get here? What happened? One klik he was on patrol like usual, the next he's in carbon-based country.

Maybe...

He activates his comlink. "Thrust to Megatron."

Nothing. Another channel: "Thrust calling Megatron."

Nothing. He tries the Citadel instead. "Thrust to base, anyone, come in." There isn't really anyone but Megatron, but there should be a few diagnostic drones capable of answering a comm if all else fails.

But there is nothing. In desperation, he tries using a Maximal frequency. "Thrust to anyone who's out there.

"Anybody."

But there is nothing.

"Scan for energy signatures, all known factions." Thrust's onboard computer acknowledges him, and scanns for several nano-kliks before announcing No energy signatures detected, quite mildly.

Thrust is alone.

And completely lost on an alien world that-- so far-- seems to lack any sort of technology whatsoever. "Scan for energon sources."

No energon sources detected.

"That's gonna be a problem. Scan--" for what? Civilization? "Scan for artificial constructs of any kind."

Paved surface, composed of gravel and tar, approximately point six five three hics on heading... Thrust drops into vehichle mode and pours on the speed-- a paved surface has to be a road, even if it is so primitive as gravel and tar, and a road has to lead somewhere. As adrift as he might be in this weird, organic world, Thrust has more pressing matters than how he got where he is.

He needs fuel-- not urgently, not immediately, but he's not going to waste time moping or flailing and end up starving to death.

The road is very primitive, not even bordered by anything, just slopped onto the ground and made level enough for transport. There aren't any dwellings, not even any ruins of dwellings, so maybe, Thrust figures, the road is just to get things from here to there through Critter Country.

The access road turns into something a little more attractive, eventually, and widens into a parking lot and visitor's center. A large sign over the gate declares THANK YOU FOR VISITING EDMUND ST. HILARY STATE PARK.

There's a bright green pteranodon perched on the sign, and Thrust can't help but think it should be red, instead.

More important than irrational thoughts about dinosaurs, however, is the fact that Thrust can't read that sign. "Frag, I hope I got whatever that is..." He's got a full complement of basic language datatrax... but that's only basic languages, and he worries even as he flicks from one set of non-Cybertronian glyphs to the next that this one's going to be exotic-- or unknown completely. What if he wound up somewhere Transformers had never been?

And then, suddenly, the sign makes sense.

English. One of a couple hundred languages in his datatrax from a planet called Earth-- a planet that sounds familiar, but Thrust doesn't have any pre-programmed history and hasn't ever been all that interested in it anyway. So he's on Earth, or possibly an Earthen colony world. That's a start.

Though the visitor's center looks like it's been tripped over by a quadraped, Thrust transforms to robot mode and investigates it. No energon (he's never that lucky) and not even enough components to start building a refuelling station (not that he wants to build one here, the wildlife doesn't like him), but there are maps among the overturned souvenirs and looted cash register. The looter didn't get far; all that's left now is a heap of gnawed bones, a nametag reading Steve, and a spray of scattered coins.

The map takes Thrust a while to puzzle out-- he can't figure out where the nearest major metropolitan area is, but from the topographical details, it looks like things flatten out to the south, over the Oregon border and into the sector called California. If he can get to Klamath Falls, he can take the major roadway marked 97 running southwest to the even more major roadway marked with a sheild and a five. From there, it looks possible to get just about anywhere in the three westernmost sectors-- and from the middle third of California, the sheild-eighty road heads into some of the more eastern sectors. "If this is a colony world, they've sure got a lot of roads," he mutters to the looter's bones, amused.

The word 'Sacramento' is marked by a star; for now, Thrust considers that his goal. Go from Edmund St. Hilary State Park to Sacramento, keeping his optics open for anything he can use as components for a refuelling station along the way.