0.5-New Mexico-Diamonds in a Field of Coal-Open

Before the arrival of the others, the scrapyard was silent. The massive engine had sat in utter immobility for the better part of fifty years based on the great difficulty that would come from moving it to the scrapper. The appearance of the other beings meant little to it; any mind that would have still existed was nearing the very end of its capacitors and preparing for the void of nonexistence, leaving the great machine as just that, a machine. However, it took a stranger, a trespasser on the human planet running a focused scan over its hull to reveal its true secret. The energon infusion, something the slumbering giant never would have hoped for, was enough to reignite his cortex and matrix but it was not an instantaneous process. His thoughts had to build up steam. The aging Cybertronian's last act before the anticipated scrapper was to force himself into a processing error, crashing his cortex and putting himself into a self imposed hibernation. His sub-processes, feeling the influx of fresh energon, were soon booting... just in time for a bang.

The explosion which sent scrap scattering in all directions also sent a vibration through the living steel, the vast awareness incredibly slow to rouse felt as though a wonderful rest had been interrupted. There were several image stills which ran in his cortex including a peaceful scrapyard, a massive shadowed being holding... something, and a rain, avalanche of scrap. The being wanted to move, wanted to mobilize, to get a better view but warnings flashed past its mind's eye saying energon levels were dangerously low. As the mind finally came to the realization of where it was, something stepped out of the glare and pounded on his rusted boiler, the impacts sending booming dulcet vibrations out across the landscape of scrap.

"Anyone home?"

The voice was metallic, hard... almost familiar. As its awareness cleared further several memories returned and he, yes he, realized tha the being looked familiar; a biomechanical being... here? On... Earth? Tensing, the metal all across his frame whining in resistance, he shunted all of the energy away from forward mobilization and directly into his T-cog. Slowly his strength grew, the liquid energon in his boiler forcing his energy levels upward. All across his frame a groan was emitted as the great engine shifted for the first time in half an earth century, the energy absorbed and supercharging the frame as it spread throughout his systems, reawakening and revitalizing systems long thought to be redundant. On the outside the rusted hulk shuddered, paint and rust chipping from every surface as the engine began to vibrate, the T-cog fully charged for what was to come.

The shift began infinitely slowly, a small line of steam leaking from the funnel. The massive engine, rust and all, popped, its faceplate shaking outward as the miles of boiler tubing rearranged itself. Boiler plating inverted as the axles of the drive wheels were split down the middle, trailing wheels shunting away from the front and back into the cab and body. The center of the engine lifted, tender and cab breaking in thousands of places and rearranging as the boiler near the back, whole systems which once carried steam re-configuring to carry energon. The tender itself split apart, wheels and armor plating splicing into the engine and wrapping into the ever shifting mass of gears and wheels. On one side a fist slammed the ground, bending rails and compacting scrap as it pushed down, propping the engine up farther as a leg extended, then another followed by the vague shape of a head and another arm as the changes neared completion. Thousands of small panels shifted and shrieked, the hands clenching as its tie rods came together in its primary hand, three drive wheels capping it in a vicious looking weapon. A mass of wheels, rods, plates, and gears coalesced over its left shoulder, slamming together before rotating this way and that as though on a massive gimbal. As the last plate fell into place the shriek of metal on metal ceased, a cascade of rust coating the ground a dull brown. No identification marked his hull; for the great bot was neither Autobot nor Decepticon.

As the being finally shifted, stepped down onto his massive feet he rapidly tried to refocus his optics. He was a massive behemoth towering over the nearby scrap piles and standing a full chest higher than the other visible cybertronian but in an instant he had upturned his weapon and was balancing his weight on it; his mouth opened as his vision swam and a great moan escaped his vocabulator, a mix of rusted nails, escaping steam, and alien speech echoed across the scrap yard. He sighed and straightened up, placing a hand on his helm, trying to clear the haze... he had meant to say who are you but his whole body felt just like his voice and he groaned, opening his mouth he tried again.

Cyber... tronian.

The great bot paused, regaining some of his balance he took his weight off of the great implement in his hand, the object over his shoulder rotating in an attempt to maintain balance.

Who... are... you?

As the transformation began, Arma took a step back, her optics narrowing a bit, as the old rusty locomotive started to take form. Slowly, as it was expected, from thing that size, and that rusty. Her attention was caught only once, as the autobot, which she had buried, blew himself free from the scrapheap. Literally, blew himself free, landing on some distance from her, and the locomotive. Normally, she would've just charged after him, and start whacking, but right now she should avoid physical combat as long as possible. She even, against all her manners, turned her weapon's turret to point back, meaning not to give hostile impression about herself. She wasn't in her best battle shape, though, if needed, then she would get in action, right away. But the longer she was able to stay out of battle the better. As the giant finally reached it's real form, Arma just realized how big this one was. As the other one seemed to be pretty confused, and the bot she had buried, had not yet shown any marks of hostility, except for revealing his pickaxe. She just decided to wait, and placed her left hand on her hip.

The first tryout of speech, by this giant, turned to be something outside Arma's undestanding. Her processor wasn't able to recognize a first real word, but she just thought that giant needed a bit time to adapt into the situation. She let her optics scan the massive hull, she'd never seen before, but found no marking about the side of this giant. She could use this as the advantage. If lord Megatron would not find anything proper use for this one, at least they could make it so the giant couldn't be of use, for bots either. Anyhow, strenght of this kind of bot, was always something to be investigated about.

Finally, the first words came out, slowly, but steady, somehow at least. She was already about to answer, but the autobot made it first. She let her babble at his own peace, she, even if she wasn't any good speaker, could use this too as her advantage. "Well, that's just like you autobots, no manners at all, exposing your weapon without any real need." She started, with her own, steady, yet cold tone, before turning herself completely towards . "The great one, my name, is Armadura, but just call me Arma." The politeness, something she had always used only when accompanying decepticon warlord, it was hard to do so in front of giant pile of rusted metal. "It is true, he did give you the infusion, but why, just look at him, exposing his weapon in front of you. He can't have any good intent to do so." Yes, Arma wasn't speaker at all. Her logic had always based on the line, strong lives, weak falls. She hadn't had need to really think about what she was saying at all. But if the big bot was enough dizzy to believe in her, it would be just fine.

League didn't like where this was going, his paranoia was in fully blown overdrive and he by no means was willing to put his weapon away. His temper on the other hand was being help firmly in check, even after he spotted the Autobot symbol on the giant who was slowly rising to his full height. Though he had always considered himself a front line warrior, the mech was not too willing to test his strength against the locomotive standing before him.

"Oh open your bloody scanners!" He snapped "I told yah, I'm a fragging miner, this is the tool of my trade and I have to say it's a lot less threatening then miss-tank-for-arm over here." League growled before gesturing at the Decpticon standing beside him. Then he thought of something, something that might just swing things in his favor "Give bossy-fender here a scan, even a light one can tell she has been wounded not long ago and is recovering, if I was the sort of honorless enemy she claims I would have taken advantage of that and scrapped her." he could only hope that the train-bot was recovering his senses enough to follow this track of logic League was trying to lay out.

However, having been a victim of rampant switchers and greedy Autobots, League did not lessen the grip on his weapon not trusting either bot. Even now with the pick face down in the dirt it was ready to be swung up and used if the giant were to turn on him. Or the tank-femme lost her cool and attacked, or even if they attacked him together, League didn't have any back-up so his best bet would be to com back to base and hold out as long as he could.

Caution was the only thing on Gasket's cortex at that moment but even as he stood between the two smaller bots neither better than the other at this moment. The old mech's pistons and gears ached, his rotator cuffs were chafing something aweful and his back strut felt like it could give at any moment but despite that he stood tall, the hibernation sickness not enough to get best of the great labor bot. Memory connections in his matrix were returning at a surprising rate but only served to distract him as flashes of his time on cybertron, in space, and rolling along the green countryside on earth flashed across his optics. His massive servo clamped on his forehead, trying to retain clarity, trying to sort through the massive quantity of sensory information he was awash in.

By the All-Spark, so hard to... think straight!

Giving a huffing cough he expelled several bits of rust from his vocabulator as the Autobot spoke again, drowning out the sensations as his audio receptors chimed. League claimed to be a miner and that he was indeed the honorable one, the bot opposite them both being weakened. Dropping his hand, Gasket turned his gaze back to Arma who's form was still hazy, uncertain; the neural activity across his cortex trying to accommodate the fierce reboot. Twisting quickly to look at League his "mouth" opened and he groaned in frustration, his speech rising and falling across Cybertronian basic in no uncertain terms;

Your reboot has left my circuits shorting, little bot; scanners... among them! Should be offline... not playing at dialogue.

Despite this he vented fiercely again, hoping that this would return his optics to effective operating parameters. Groaning he stepped back unsteadily but retaining his balance as he glanced at Arma again who was the second to speak. It didn't take long before, even despite the informational overload Gasket's servo was dropping back to his side. Each optic focused independently as neither was yet synced with the other. He froze, pausing as the sensory inflow shifted, moving from images of Cybertron in its golden glory, Earth and its peace, to broken and scattered images of warriors in battle on Cybertron. He saw helms crushed, circuits flying chaotically, weapon blasts tearing into those he might have called friends in another life.

Arma spoke about being the stronger. No, fearing the stronger. A single image played across his optics and until the femme-bot ceased her speech, he stared into the face of the Decepticon's leader... You are the reason it is gone... you... only you. His helm fell to fill his optics with the ground, covered with scrap and rails, ties and his massive pedes. Focus... calm... this is your home now. Looking up he seemed to grow even taller as his back strut straightened and his helm rose to look at the form of Arma, still hazy and uncertain. He stepped toward the bot, bulk thundering on the rough ground as bits of junk were pulverized into the dirt.

Calculating; parameters exceed nominal error levels, recalculating optical targeting.

Survival of... th-th-the strongest? Fear... of the st-st-stronger? You echo your master's... mantra all too well A-a-armad-d-d....

As he took another step his mace hand rotated, no longer dragging it near the ground he raised it to ready. A single conduit shunt and energy began to pour into the weapon on his back the movement on the gimble speeding the cannon away from League and into direct firing position at Arma, the red targeting reticule swimming across the hazy form on his optics. Soon the drive wheels of the cannon were spinning well, the hum of energy indicating the sheer quantity of power directed into the system.

Targeting error not within acceptable bounds; percent chance of hit, 45.018 to 64.981.

Stand still you scrap sellin' slagger.

I... will not... l-l-lie.

His movements were slow but calculated as he dropped his right pede back, his left crashing forward to stabilize his shoulder, his offhand rising to the ready.

Survival is n-n-not... my goal.

Fear, it really was something she hadn't felt, in any situation. She hadn't been arfraid of herself, of her mission. Even though, she served decepticon Warlord more obediently than anyone, she still didn't fear about him getting hurt. She knew Megatron was absolutely the strongest, and didn't need her guarding all the time. There wasn't simply anything she could lose, and to be arfraid of losing.

The big one, suddenly took a step towards her, the huge cannon moving again, trying to target her. Survival wasn't his goal? Then what was it. Arma found herself staring into the big gun, still showing no signs of backing away. Leage, however started his babble again about that, that the big guy's energy was too low to use the weapon, without it's effecting himself.

The big guy felt like he was having a moral of autobots. Arma vented deep, while listening League still speaking, about her failing her mission, and how it was worse than anything they could do to her. She remained silent for an second, before crossing her arms. "Failed my mission?" She began with question. "I never had an order to act like this, i was just supposed to look out the unknown source of energon. But since it looks like my speech is useless, i'll just move to plan b." Her cannon, which now pointed League, came alive first time, not having it's full potential in use, but still would do damage, from this range. Same moment she had fired, she jumped sideways, meaning to avoid the big guys targeting. Instantly as she landed, her form started to change, into her alt form. She was still bit stiff, but was after all able to turn into the heavy battle tank's form.

As she was ready, she shot towards League again, her engine roaring, as tank treads started to crush the scrap under the mass of Leopard, as she reversed. The real threat right now, was League. The big guy was not in full condition, and was even stiffer than herself, all she should do was to keep moving, so she wouldn't get into the range of that cannon. She could get rid of him later, after taking care of league. As she reversed behind big metal pile, and came out again, to fire another shot, before she opened the throttle, letting the engine's full power to take her again behind the pile of scrap. She wouldn't be safe there, but all that scrap would at least hide her for an second. Targeting her would be harder, and incoming shots would be easier to defect, because she would hear them early enough to start moving, before hit. Some of these were the tactics used by these pathethic humans. Shoot, hide, shoot again, change your position.

"Just for you to know, either of you will not leave this site as one piece. I may be recovering, but i still can take down both of you, if it cannot affort decepticons, i won't let it affort autobots either!" Her voice, even if it was louder, had it's tone completely normal. Right after that, she throttled again, but this time, even if turret was turned towards them, she fired few smoke grenades. It though, wasn't normal smoke. It was infrared smoke, hiding the warmth signals. After firing em, she throttled again, behind again new scrappile. Ususally she would've just charged in, but now she should at least use some tactician skills, before doing so.

"Well this is a pile of slag." League muttered as he began to move, taking one potshot to the right arm as he worked on avoiding the rest. The mech then clicked open his com "League to base, get be a fragging bridge and you better open the doors wide! I got a half deranged giant of a bot that needs medical attention!" and with the call in it was only a matter of time before the rift would manifest. Then League would have to figure out how to get the train into the bridge, which would be a chore in and of itself.

Moving a bit away from the two bots, League neither wanted to get in the way or be involved with fighting a damaged foe. He doubted he could stop the giant if he wanted to, his best chance now was to wait for the bridge and try to knock the locomotive through once it got here...if he could.