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Okay first off, this place so didn't look like the dig she had been on in the middle of the Pacific. Which would explain why Taylor has a mud streak in her dark hair, and on her clothes. Though she brushes herself off mostly to try to look presentable.

After a moment she gives up, after all at least it's only mud and not blood or any thing else. Though her bare arms, show she's not unused to rough landings, coral hurts if you hit it in a bailout after all.

"This so isn't Rapa Nui, so. Would it be a bother to ask two things? Well three. Who is the Kahuna in charge? And where are we?" Yes she slipped into surf slang only because so far, she doesn't see professor types around and she really had been looking forward to getting the job done and testing some of the waves before she crashed for the night. Of course, it's hit or miss lately if she gets surf time.

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"I'm not offended," Megatron says lightly. "Cybertronians as a species, and especially my people, didn't realise that machines made of flesh could be sapient for a very long time. When we first encountered humans, they weren't. They weren't even humans, yet." He smiles. If he weren't trying so hard to appear harmless, it would probably be kind of a terrifying smile. He is a warframe and wasn't built to look comforting, although he's finally been convinced that he's at least an attractive mech.

"We're all machines," he says. "Self-replicating, intelligent machines. The human body is made of organic nanomachines working together, just as the mechanoid body is. Although the human process of self-replication is a lot less complex than the Cybertronian processes are."

He considers what she's told him. "Usually new arrivals end up in the Plaza, with a bit more information than you seem to have got. I also arrived in an unorthodox manner. My partner, Loki, lives here, and he invited me to visit him here shortly after we met, but before we became spark-mates. You're in the Nexus. I don't understand interdimensional physics very well, because I'm not a scientist. But I am told, by reliable sources, that we are in a place between universes. If you really want to understand how that works I would recommend discussing it with the angels, or with Dr Stanford Pines, when he comes to shop and to visit his friends."

This is probably not the kind of information Taylor is looking for.

"Anyhow. You've stumbled further afield than you ever meant to. You're not on the planet your camp is on. We can get you some pamphlets and a PINpoint card in the city. I'd show you my PINpoint but it's integrated with my systems. It functions like a 'credit card' or a 'smart phone', in some ways. You can probably use it to get home, once you figure out where home is, in relation to here. Unless you decide that you want to stay."

He shrugs. "I was on my way back anyway. Would you like me to accompany you to the PINpoint machines and pamphlet distributories? As I said before, I'm retired. It's no trouble. Someone might worry if I don't get back before any of the children come home, but I'm not usually left alone with them, so Mrs Hedgeworthy will be there. I love the children...but I don't quite understand how organic chlidren function."

[PLEASE. Most of the Transformers here are from IDW or TFP. We do have a G1 Ghost Starscream. He's hilarious.

My character Rosanna works for Blaster and would be very relieved to see a Blaster again even if he's not her Blaster. There is a severe Autobot/Decepticon imbalance in the Nexus, and this is mostly my fault, because I play about 10 Decepticons, one civilian Autobot--the popstar Rosanna--and one (1) "redeemed" Megatron Autobot. There's about 5 people here that I know play bots, but I'm the only one that plays mostly bots except for a few Gravity Falls canon characters and OCs. People have jokingly suggested that I should play more Autobots but I am just always more drawn to the 'cons.

Also, just because this is cool: Nanobot.]

Edited (Megs is not confused by who is human and who's just organic but sometimes I am when they look the same LOL) 2021-04-18 00:37 (UTC)

"Okay, you have just gotten my attention. Back home, I'm a bit of a history nerd. Usually focus on pirates around the Pacific Ocean, but I mean you've lived it." She grinned. "And you're right, I mean in the basic way." She tucked the hair behind her ear.

"I, may have missed some of it, only because I tend to explore if I went through the plaza it may have been early in my exploration." The Loki bit caused her to look up. "Norse Mythology? I mean it wouldn't surprise me met Lucifer earlier after all and on my world he's from a religious mythos as well."

"I'm Human from Earth, and well, I'm willing to go back and forth if I can, this place seems more of an adventure than anywhere on my world." She nodded. "Thanks, I would probably wonder into the wilds that Lucifer warned me not to go into."

[We'll see, I just started a new project and well, I'm not sure how much of my life it's going to take from me. but if I can wake the boombox up I will.]

"Oh, I've lived a lot of history, but most of it was Cybertronian history, not human history. We weren't really paying attention to that until the 1980s." Megatron smiles a little uneasily. "I made a lot of Cybertronian history. I'm only proud of some of it. I'm not sure what you mean by 'the basic way'?"

He glances away for a moment. "Anyhow. I think you'd recognise the Plaza. It looks like any of a number of such places throughout the universe--an area in a shopping and working district where people gather?

"One thing you should probably know is that there are many, millions even, of dimensions where there is a planet called Earth, with humans on it. There are a lot of dimensions where there's a Cybertron, with Cybertronians on it, but we're far less common throughout the multiverse than humans from Earth. The likelihood that your Earth and mine are the same is infinitesimal. I don't know anything about Norse 'mythology' but Loki's a very real person, my partner and lover. There are other Lokis here from other worlds. There are also two people here named Soundwave. One of them has been my friend for millions of years. I don't think the other one has friends.

"I know who Lucifer is mythologically, and at least in Paradise Lost, I think he had the right of it. I believe there's only one Lucifer here but there's more than one Balthazar."

He leads her back toward the town. "The Wilds are dangerous, more so for you than for me. I think they feel different from the rest of the wooded areas, but I can read electromagnetic fields."

He's actually sure that chance that they've been on the same Earth is zero point zero to the nth power. After all, she didn't run away from him screaming. That was his first clue. He took over the Earth in his universe for a while and the humans were not very happy about it. At the time, he didn't care about that.

"Still would be interesting." She smiled softly. "I never said he wasn't. And now I know why Ash said what she did when I asked about doppelgangers." She walks with him glad he's relatively human sized.

Taylor hasn't ever run from danger, or at least initial contact with dangerous things. Hell she's gone surfing with bull sharks in the water off the coast of Australia, though they probably aren't from the same Earth at all.

"I thought 'mythology' meant things that aren't real. Doppelganger?" Megatron doesn't know that word. "Is that a lookalike? The alternates don't, always, though. The two Soundwaves look different, or so I've been told. I've not met the purple one. But it traumatised Ravage to meet him, and Ravage and Soundwave have loved one another since the day that they met."

He ex-vents, softly. "If you want to learn about Cybertronian history, I might start giving classes, again. I did before, once. I should warn you that I'm mass-displaced and at twenty percent of my natural size. Cybertronians can transform into different things, and some of us have the ability of mass displacement. I'm currently the size of the smallest among us, but I'm naturally five times bigger than this. If I give classes again, you'll be in a room full of very large people."

If he knew how brave she was it would please him, but what he likes the most about this odd girl is the sense he gets of her wildness.

Megatron isn't particularly fond of tameness; he likes wild things that refuse to stay between the lines, regardless of frame-type or species. He does wander in and out of the Wilds sometimes, though he avoids the Eliksni. He finds wildness a comfort, as one would expect from someone who loves Loki, loved Ravage, tried to love Starscream once...

Edited 2021-04-18 11:18 (UTC)

"Yes, though legend says that they are bad to run across actually. it means your death if you see yours. But Mainlanders also say you shouldn't go into deep water on just a board. I may not be Native Hawaiian, but there's no place I've felt safer than on a paddle board in the deep sea. You see more out there."

"So I'll just have to make sure if I do, I find a good perch. Though I'm not great in a classroom setting." She smirked. "I was horrible in a formal setting, which drove my professors at college nuts. Seriously, I'm the reason three of them started seeing a therapist."

Megatron can't help laughing. "There are different kinds of safety," he says, "and people who spend their entire lives trying to avoid risk never feel safe. Some people only feel safe in deep space, or the deep sea. I was never particularly risk-avoidant, so I'm not going to worry about it if you decide to join my classes. Besides, I already need therapy, or so people tell me."

He smirks right back at her. "You're going to love Una, by the way. My partner's younger daughter. She's afraid of nothing, so the rest of us get to be terrified."

"The false safety is overrated." She was glad he was laughing about it though. "I'll think about it though. That is if I don't get sidetracked by other things."

Taylor grinned. "Aw, so aliens do care. Most of our corny movies state otherwise. And only saying that because you are alien to me." She grinned.

"Actually, for the most part, they don't. For the most part, aliens want what they come to a planet for, which usually isn't the inhabitants, at least in my experience. It's typically something they need to survive that there isn't enough of on their own worlds. If you're very unlucky, what they need is real estate. If you're lucky, they want something you're not even using, and they'll leave you alone if they can. But I told you that I'm not proud of all the history I've made," Megatron says gently.

"The delightful thing about the Nexus is that everyone is aliens. Especially the ones who look like you, but come from somewhere else. They can be more alien than anyone else, because you expect them to make sense and then they don't."

She was silent a moment, "It's in the past right?"

"This is true, I know it's all alien to me. As for making sense... I'm a treasure hunter and a surfer. I don't make sense to most people."

"Very much so," Megatron assures her, and his expression is not one of a man--or a mech--who's proud of his crimes. "I led a slave revolt, but the government I started after that got out of hand. After I stopped waging war, I wanted for a while to be a pacifist. But even after I stopped, I kept ending up in situations where my choices were to fight or let other people I cared about get hurt. So I'm not a pacifist, but I'm also not a warlord, anymore. It turns out that the middle path is almost always the best one. Now I will only fight to protect and defend those who need it."

The woods are getting sparser now, the town closer.

"I don't think most people make sense even to themselves. We're capable of wanting two or more contradictory things at the same time, and we're not very capable of making a decision between them and living with that. What kind of treasures are you hunting?"

She listened to his words and after a moment she reached out her hand placing it on his arm. "If you're remorseful and trying to make up for the past then that's the best you can do."

"The job I was on was for the guy that raised me. He's part of a society that, honestly I don't think it would be good if they found the lost continent. So, I was debating double crossing them, finding the place just so I could see it, maybe get a few sketches, but keep it secret. Finding this place though, little cooler than an ancient civilization. Even if they were a Water people." She touched the shark tooth at her neck, nearly as big as the palm of her hand. "Most of the time that's what I'm doing though, finding ruins of villages, or cities and trying to piece together the past. Sometimes there's a cool treasure involved. Like this one time I actually helped find an ancient statue that had been stolen from a temple in my mother's home country. It was a good luck totem for the village, and bringing it back, actually helped restore some of the prosperity for the village, mostly because it brought people to see it and bumped up commerce, but still felt good returning the statue."

Megatron is touched by Taylor's response, even though he knows she doesn't know how many flowers there are around his statue on the Necroworld--how many lives he's taken, or ordered others to take. But she's right.

They could still be blossoming there at an exponential rate.

"Thank you," he says, and means it. "I'm glad you take things back to the people they belong to. That's not what I think of when I hear the words 'treasure hunter', normally. I take it the person who raised you does not share your values."

"Yeah I know what most people think. But I figure the past is so full of people stealing things and claiming them for themselves, it's fun stealing from those kinds when needed, to try to make things right." She stretched a little. "Though most people also don't expect a surfer to have a doctorate either."

"Oh? What's your doctorate in, archaeology or something of that nature?" Megatron studied her. "Well, I'm clearly no better at estimating organic ages as I ever was. I would have sworn you were no more than twenty."

"Art actually, well Art history. The guy who raised me hoped that it would convince me to try to be a director or some other 'honest' profession." She tapped her pocket where her journal and pencils were. "Joke was on him, I learned to draw really well, and abuse the skill on digs, because sometimes a camera flash can ruin important details."

"Good for you. I bet your work is lovely." Megatron smiles. "It's also important to have a creative outlet. I write poetry, myself. I have as long as I've been able to write. Though some of the first ones weren't very good."

"Sometime if you want I'll do a sketch of you. I already drew Lucifer, not everyday a girl sees a guy with wings after all." She grinned. "Though both of us were sitting talking so it was easier."

"Sure, I'd like that. Loki might, too."

They come out of the woods onto a side road, the Plaza not far away.

"There's a lot to see here. When I decided to come here to live, and not just to visit Loki...I started wandering around all over the place to see what I could see. That's why I shrank myself down so far, so that I wouldn't attract so much attention and I'd actually be able to watch what went on. Angels are not uncommon here. There really are a lot of them. They have their own enclave. There are all sorts of people here. There are multiple varieties of humans, not all from Earth--there are Cybertronians, and another kind of mecha called Exos. There are sapient flightless birds--I think they're called Skeksis. Some dinosaurs, at least one person who looks like a humanoid feline..." He shrugs. "And of course you won't know this, but sapient Cybertronians can have a humanoid shape, like mine, or an animal-like shape, or even just a machine shape, and they're all equally intelligent."

"So, this place... Will be fun." She grinned. "Hey I'm cool with all sorts of people, I might be a little startled, but I adjust. Another reason why my uncle swears I really am part fish."

"...how would that even work?" Megatron is completely confused now... as he often is by idioms and metaphors that presume even a basic knowledge of how organic plants and animals work. "Is that even possible?"

"There is a mythical creature on my world, that is part fish, they're called Mermaids, though there are Mermen as well. He insists I'm one. Though I assure you I am Human. I just feel safer on the water than on land, or at least near water."

"Ah...that's different. Some Cybertronians are like that about the air, they're happier there than anywhere else." Megatron smiles. "I thought perhaps your ...mentor? guardian? had been alluding to some bizarre experimental thing. Humans in our universe have been known to experiment upon us, when they've had the chance to..."

That's not so pleasant a thought, but it's true, and it's been so long since he heard about it that his expression is pretty much neutral.

"Oh?" She caught what he must have meant. "Oh Gods no. I mean he's looking for artifacts of beings, but as far as I know, none of them can do that. At least I hope not." She rubbed the back of her neck. "Only time I've ever heard of stuff like that happening is in sci-fi movies or ya know cartoons. Either way it's not considered real where I am from."

"It's real where I come from," Megatron says, "but I suppose my universe would qualify as science fiction in many of the places where other people in the Nexus have lived."

He frowns. "I don't think it would make a very good cartoon. At least not an Earth-style cartoon. Don't they limit the amount of violence you can have in those? My world's a fairly violent place."

[OOC: Face. Palm.]