Fandom An Unexpected Road Trip

[Neniu]

For anyone else, the situation could be generously called 'less than optimal'. After having been on this planet for a little less than a cycle, Cascade found himself lost. A disastrous trip through a damaged Ground Bridge, preceded by an altercation with Decepticon forces, had sent him tumbling out into an unfamiliar location in the middle of this planet’s night cycle. His long-range communication array had been knocked out of commission, and his internal repair system had deemed them the second lowest priority repair. There was Energon leaking from somewhere inside him, so he supposed the reprioritization had merit. Recognizing the vulnerable state he found himself in, he'd transformed into his vehicle mode so as to not draw unneeded attention. Somehow he didn't think Prime would be pleased if a human snapped a picture of him, and especially not as a giant robot bleeding energon. Still, his internal sensors kept pinging him regarding damage, and the damage made him feel sluggish and discombobulated.

Yes, less than optimal certainly described the situation. However... as Cascade pulled into one of the many lots filled with cars that seemed to populate the planet, Cascade found himself feeling less upset about the situation than he expected. Perhaps one of the blows he'd received had damaged his processor. Or maybe, for the first time in what felt like an age, he wasn't surrounded by reminders of the war. The sun on this planet was only just rising, and there was a certain stillness to everything that even the constant movement of the humans couldn't quite break. From the furthest reaches of his mind, came memories of similar stillness on Cybertron, before everything had gone to the Pits.



Peace



A world at Peace. Something so divorced from Cascade's experiences, that it might be the most alien part of coming here. A part of him felt the immediate pull to leave, to search out Optimus Prime and return to the front lines that he'd known most of his existence. But another part, dare he say a larger part, wished to stay here and bask in the peace around him. In the simple safety of it all.



So under the guise of healing, and gathering information, Cascade let himself sit in a parking spot and just observe the world around him. Listen to the sounds around him, chirping flying creatures and humans going about their business. Both paying attention to his surroundings, and zoning out. Which was why he did not initially notice her.

 

[Ersa93]

Meg had been having a lousy trip so far. In hindsight, maybe she should’ve flown, but plane tickets were way too expensive and she didn’t even want to think about all the luggage fees that came attached to them. Unfortunately, she had underestimated the ability of her aging sedan and the car started breaking down. Fortunately, she was able to pull into a park space before there was a loud clunk and the car completely stopped. Next time, her cousin was making a cross-country trip to see her. She was done with all of this.

She climbed out of the car and popped the hood with a sigh. She was no mechanic, but she was hoping that she could at least see what the problem was. Maybe it was just a dead battery and she could revive it with a quick jump and get it to the shop.
The blond-haired woman looked around. The parking lot was mostly empty, which didn’t surprise her. This wasn’t really a busy stretch of road nor was it really the time of day when many people would be out. Her best bet seemed to be the lone Corolla in the parking lot.

But what happened if it was being driven by a serial killer? Or what if someone was sleeping in it and got mad that she disturbed them and reacted violently? But what option did she have? Her cell phone had no bars so she couldn’t call for a tow.

Meg gathered her courage and walked over to the car. She knocked on the window.

“Hello in there? I’ve broken down and I could use some help. I’m not sure what exactly’s wrong with my car. It might be the battery. I have jumper cables if you’re able to give me a jump. Or if it’s something else, I need a ride to a gas station or something. I have no bars out here, so I can’t exactly call someone for help and I don’t think I can walk there.”

She didn’t seem to notice the oddly robotic bird that flew overhead, probably because it was too far up for her to that it didn’t have feathers and was bigger than any vulture should be.

 

[Neniu]

Frag

One of the natives, a human, had approached him without his noticing. Replaying his memory circuit, he was able to see her coming out of one of the dilapidated Earth vehicles that had pulled into the parking lot. For a moment Cascade panicked. Should he drive away? Would that be suspicious? Would that run the risk of clipping her? Humans were really fragile; That’s what everyone told him over and over again when it was announced he was being temporarily assigned there.

Thinking quickly, he activated his hologram, manipulating it so that it appeared that he had been leaning over into the passenger seat before sitting up. The image he produced was a man dressed all in black, with dark hair. With any luck that would cover up his lapse in judgement when he forgot to create the image of a driver. Hopefully no one had seen the driverless car going down the street.

His avatar rolled down the window, and gave the appearance of looking at the woman with a shaky smile. It occurred to Cascade as he prepared to speak, that if he were to attempt to jump the woman’s vehicle, the battery would probably explode.

“I’m sorry Miss, but I don’t have any jumper cables…”

Cascade sent a prayer to the Matrix that he wasn’t speaking too loudly, or softly. He was unused to speaking to anything that wasn’t a cybertronian. Observing the woman, he thought about telling her to skedaddle and try her luck elsewhere. Only, Cascade wasn’t sure where elsewhere would be in this case. From a quick look around the area, it seemed that the woman was on her own. A little further away was the vehicle she’d come from, and even without scanning it Cascade could see it was on it’s last legs.

“But your uh- car over there looks like it needs more than a jump.”

If it were an Autobot, Cascade would be suggesting a medic with a crash cart. Or maybe last rites. For all intents and purposes, this woman was stranded, without a communication device according to her own words. Cascade had no idea if this was a safe place, or if the woman would be in some kind of trouble if he just up and left.

“My phone’s on the fritz too. Tell you what, I can give you a lift to wherever it is you need to go. Or somewhere you can wait for help, ‘cause that car needs more than just gas and a boost and I’d feel awful just leaving you here to fend for yourself.”

Prime wouldn’t mind if Cascade was late getting back to base because he helped a local. It was the honorable thing to do after all. And if it gave Cascade the chance to enjoy Earth’s peacefulness, all the better.

 

[Ersa93]

Meg was glad that someone was sitting in the car and that she hadn’t just been talking to a car that someone had abandoned. That would’ve been really embarrassing, though she supposed no one would’ve been around to see it. She wondered why she hadn’t seen at least the shape of the driver when she first approached, but she attributed that to heavily tinted windows.

She decided not to correct him about the jumper cables. After all, he had probably just misheard her through the window. It was easy to do. She looked over to the car and sighed. He was probably right, but cars were really expensive at the moment, even used ones. She had money saved up but had been hoping for a price job before she would have to replace this one. Up until now, it had been fairly reliable, even if the A/C didn’t work quite right and it felt like she had to floor the pedal to get it up to highway speeds.

“I know, I know. But I guess that’s what happens when a car is nearly twenty years old. And the new ones last even less now.”

As he offered her a ride, her head went through all the reasons why it was a bad idea to get in a car with a complete stranger. But what choice did she have? There was no signal and there was no telling how long it would be before anyone came along and she was not spending time by herself in a nearly abandoned parking lot. If the guy proved not on the up and up, she could always risk jumping out. Unlike the movies, car doors could be manually unlocked from the inside after all.

“I guess I’ll have to take you up on that offer, mister. Though I don’t know where the nearest gas station or rest stop is. Do you mind if I bring my stuff? It’s just a suitcase and a bag, shouldn’t take up too much room. I’ll even bring my jumper cables just in case and I’ve got a map too so we can look up things if we need to. Just… don’t expect my map skills to be that great. Used to using GPS, you know?”

The oddly metallic bird continued to circle overhead. It wasn’t paying particular attention to the parking lot, but the wide area around it, searching for anything that stood out. But it determined that nothing was here and went to do a sweep of the next grid of land. That Autobot had to be around here somewhere if the last coordinates snagged off the Ground Bridge were correct.