SESSION 1 [6/29/2023]
NARRATOR: The cycles bleed together in this place. The general consensus is that it's been about six hundred years since you all were locked up, but Primus, it feels like so much longer than that. Really, there's no way to tell. There are no windows, you're not allowed outside, and your chronometers were busted at the door. They said it was so that you wouldn't get distracted by waiting out the clock. Realistically, the best response to something like this would be to just fix it yourself, but you've long since given up on that because every time you make any small adjustment or repair to yourself that isn't absolutely necessary, you are punished harshly for it, especially if it's your chronometer or your T-cog. They didn't break it, they just knocked it loose, so all you would need to do is push it back up in there, but it's a more delicate process than it sounds.
NARRATOR: This place is a world all to its own, where the passage of time is as illusionary as the concept of freedom. However, hope is a resilient little bastard that sprouts up like a weed amidst even the densest fields of concrete. Megatron, your leader, is planning a mass escape. The day of reckoning is set for a nebulous "soon", so in your minds, you simply deduce that "it'll happen when it happens." Surely one of these days, you'll see someone flash a certain signal followed by a very specific set of unassuming movements, and that will be the catalyst. Everyone will be ready, and it'll all fall into place.
NARRATOR: But you're not ready. You don't know what "ready" looks like because nobody has told you what the escape plan is yet. For now, all you can do is keep your armaments close and your friends closer.
NARRATOR: As you finish your first half-cycle rotation, a loud buzzer shreds through the room, signaling the start of the mid-cycle break. This is usually accompanied by energon consumption and a brief respite, keyword being "brief". It is first come first served, but everyone waits for Megatron and his high command to go first. Not because they got here the earliest, but because it is imperative that they have that extra energy to plan the big escape. Plus, it's not like there's ever enough for everyone anyway. That's a feature, not a bug. They want to keep you hungry, to keep you infighting, to keep your bonds strained so that you can't join together and rise up against them. But a hungry dog is not an obedient dog. A hungry dog bites.
NARRATOR: Anyway, Megatron and his high command file out of the room after receiving their fill. They all crowd around each other so that he is obscured from view, but you all watch as they file out to their seats. Everyone else files in afterwards, yourselves included. There is a counter at the front where the barely refined energon is distributed and a long, bench-like structure that spans the entire length of the back wall. Sitting down is not required although it is advised, and it is at this time that in order to have an introduction order, I would like everyone to roll initiative.
FRIED: It was hard to find the unmute button, but yippee! Initiative is a d20, right?
ROSS: Yep, your initiative is a d20 + whatever modifier you have in your channel, which I think I have it pinned in your channels-- No, I didn't. I only pinned it in Hover's channel. Oops. Hold on... Jetrush, your initiative is +1, and Shift, your initiative is +2.
HOVER: [9 + 2 = 11]
SHIFT: [9 + 2 = 11]
MIN: Oh shit! Uhh, I don't think you guys will believe me.
ROSS: Did you roll a nat 1 immediately?
JETRUSH: [NAT 20]
ROSS: OH MY GOD.
FRIED: We're starting off great!
ROSS: Yeah. Remember to put your rolls in [dice channel].
MIN: Oh god, I just used up all my fucking luck. I just realized that. Fuck.
FRIED: Can Stranger and I rock-paper-scissors?
ROSS: Yeah, sure. (sarcasm)
SHIFT: [10 + 2 = 12]
HOVER: [12 + 2 = 14]
ROSS: Alright, so it's gonna go Jetrush, Hover, Shift. You have three choices up at the counter: You can 1) give yourself a smaller portion so that others can have more, 2) an average portion to give yourself the illusion of equality, or 3) you can take a little bit extra for yourself if you wanna be a little stinker. That one will require a stealth check, though.
JETRUSH: [Oof. Yeah, I'll go average.]
SHIFT: [Average.]
HOVER: [Oh, I feel mean. I was gonna do a little extra.]
ROSS: Then gimme a stealth check.
HOVER: [2 + 2 = 4]
NARRATOR: A mech down the line a ways catches you.
ONSLAUGHT: Hey, leave some for the rest of us, why don't ya?
NARRATOR: You recognize them as Onslaught. What I'm about to say to you about him is not railroading, but rather genuine piece of DM advice: Please do not mess with Onslaught.
HOVER: [I am not going to offend him.]
NARRATOR: The energon is sufficient despite its awful taste, but you've grown numb to it by now. Y'know how humans can get horrifically ill from eating raw meat? You can get horrifically ill from eating raw energon. Thus, the energon that they feed you all is refined to the bare minimum degree so that that doesn't happen. After all, you can't work when you're fighting just to ventilate.
NARRATOR: You all already know each other. It would be kind of hard to not have known each other since you've all had no choice but to look at each others' sorry faceplates every cycle for the last six hundred years. It's just been hard to really get a moment to get to know each other amidst the monotonous busy work that plagues your existence these cycles. So what's gonna happen now is we're gonna use the same initiative order we just used for some NPC interaction.
NARRATOR: Jetrush. You feel a tap on your left shoulder. It's Slipstream. It's rather surprising to see her down here instead of with her more high-ranking trinemates, especially when she likes to try and convince everyone that she's in high command. She's not. Her trine leader--and by extension, your trine leader--is in high command. In fact, he's the direct second in command to Megatron himself. However, she is not him. She just likes to parade herself around like she's better than the other seekers, despite Thundercracker and Skywarp outranking her. She still outranks you, though, and she uses that to her advantage very often. She looks around in either direction before dropping her voice volume real low and pulling you down to hear her closer.
SLIPSTREAM: Hey, loser. When you hear old blue, it's go time for you.
JETRUSH: Okay?
SLIPSTREAM: What do you mean, okay? It's the code from high command!
ROSS: Insight check.
JETRUSH: [13]
ROSS: That is a success. You'd think that her position as well as the name of your faction would imply that she'd be a better liar. She's not. She's full of shit. She's making this the fuck up.
JETRUSH: Slipstream, do you really think you would give orders for that?
SLIPSTREAM: Well, what do you want me to do about it? Nobody tells me scrap! And I'm sure they tell you a whole lot less, huh? Ugh, for booting up cold...
JETRUSH: Yeah, exactly. That's why I'm waiting for an actual signal. Now please, leave me alone.
SLIPSTREAM: In case you haven't noticed, it's a prison, not a circus. We don't need anymore clowns around here.
NARRATOR: Hover. You feel someone lightly tug on your elbow. It's Vortex. Now, here's the thing about Vortex. She hardly ever talks to anyone outside of the other Combaticons. So when she comes up to you, she has this really uncomfortable expression that you can almost feel through her mask, as if she had to fight herself to initiate this interaction.
VORTEX: Hey, you're good with, like, repairs and stuff, right?
HOVER: I think I am.
VORTEX: Listen, it- it's not me, I'm fine. It's Swindle. We think that he hit his helm really hard on something because he's been talking nonsense for the last couple of cycles. I've never seen him like this. He keeps rambling about some weird fake currency none of us have ever heard of. I don't remember what it was, but he's lost his processor over the stuff. He's all twitchy too, and his optics are moving all over the place all the time. Sometimes they even change color! Like, he can't focus on his work as much, and we're just really worried about him. You know what happens when you don't get your work done around here, and we don't want that happening to him.
FRIED: Ah! My brain! This is fun! I feel bad!
HOVER: Uhh, I'll see what I can do, but I'm not... I'm silly.
VORTEX: ...Yeah. Right. I just mainly don't trust Knockout to figure out what his deal is because he might make it worse.
HOVER: That's valid.
VORTEX: You know how he is about finding a "cure" for... something, I dunno. Just- once second rotation is over, could you, like, sneak down to our gestalt cell and see what his issue is? I'll cover your case if you get caught, just... please?
HOVER: Okeydokey! I don't trust Knockout either.
VORTEX: Thank you. Thank you so much, oh my Primus.
NARRATOR: Shift. Out of the corner of your vision, you see someone wave you over. It's Dragstrip. You're no stranger to the Stunticons due to your previous line of work, especially with her. She's often made jokes that she considers you an honorary Stunticon, even though she's not Motormaster and that therefore isn't her call to make. Still, the sentiment is there. The warm, familiar expression she greets you with takes on a bit of a sadder undertone to it now.
DRAGSTRIP: Hey there, rookie. How ya holdin' up?
SHIFT: Ugh, bloody hell, I'm doing absolutely awful. Hands are aching.
DRAGSTRIP: Welcome to the club. Well listen, listen- you wanna hear something crazy?
SHIFT: Oh, what's happened this time?
DRAGSTRIP: I got word from another floor that productivity is literally so bad there that even if they were to haul aft for the entirety of second rotation, they would still be behind us. Even the other rooms on this floor are having trouble compared to us. Which means we can, y'know, relax a little bit once we get back to work, eh? Of course, you still obviously gotta look busy, but we can afford to dial it back a little. We just gotta make sure we're ahead of the other stations, which I don't think is going to be a problem for either of us, really. Just try not to eat my dust too much, alright? Hahaha!
SHIFT: Sounds like a bloody relief. I swear, one of these cycles, my arm's gonna fall off.
NARRATOR: She laughs a little bit too loudly and kinda catches herself and quickly shuts herself back up while looking around nervously at the guards.
DRAGSTRIP: Err... yeah, I'll try not to work myself too hard either, yeah?
NARRATOR: She holds out her hand for you to fistbump her.
SHIFT: [I'll happily fistbump her in return.]
MIN: The sillies!
ROSS: The sillies!
FRIED: The sillies!
NARRATOR: The horn sounds again, signalling the end of the break. Back to the old grind. You three have been sequestered at the same workstation for a while now, so this is routine. Each station competes with the other stations in the room, each room competes with the other rooms on the floor, and each floor competes with the other floors in the complex. There is never a repeat of the worst performing station, not because of the rules but because lessons are learnt pretty quickly around here.
NARRATOR: The usual low rumble of chatter in the work hall is suddenly interrupted by a situation you've grown all too familiar with. Astrotrain is agitating one of the guards again. Rarely if ever are you supposed to even know the guards' names, but this one you know is Kup. It's always Kup and Astrotrain butting helms about some nitpicky scrap. You'd think that by now that Astrotrain would get sick of making Kup's every online moment miserable, but it's a mutual exchange of hatred between the two of them.
NARRATOR: This time, though, Kup's just about had it, and I only need one success between the three of you for a perception roll to figure out what they're arguing about.
HOVER: [14]
SHIFT: [12]
JETRUSH: [6]
NARRATOR: Two successes. That is sufficient. You manage to catch that Astrotrain made a snide comment about someone by the name of "Grimlock". Now that you have succeeded, I need you to roll subsequent history checks.
STRANGER: Oh, well, you'll be happy to see this one!
SHIFT: [NAT 20]
ROSS: Okay!
FRIED: We're so good at this.
HOVER: [NAT 1]
JETRUSH: [2 - 1 = 1]
ROSS: OH MY GOD-
STRANGER: Guys, I am literally so good at this game!
ROSS: I'm gonna die. I'm gonna die.
STRANGER: Channeling my inner history student even while I'm gaming.
MIN: Jetrush has nothing in his brain. It's canon.
FRIED: Stranger is winning with the rolls.
ROSS: Jesus, okay.
NARRATOR: On a success, you've heard the rumors. To put it into human terms, Grimlock was like a grandson to Kup, but unfortunately, due to a drafting error, Grimlock lost his spark in the war a long time ago.
FRIED: Ohh...
MIN: Oh no, ooh...
ROSS: And Astrotrain just made a fucking snide joke about that shit.
NARRATOR: An anger flares up in Kup's optics, a different one from the usual stoic look of "I really wish I weren't here right now". He rears up with one of his tonfas and slams it down on Astrotrain's helm, yelling at him to "get on the fraggin' ground." Here's the thing. Astrotrain is a big bitch. If he wanted to, he could easily overpower Kup. However, he knows just as well as anyone else here what will happen if he tries to do it on his own. What do y'all do? I'm opening the floor.
JETRUSH: [I'm just going to cringe and look around to see others' reactions.]
NARRATOR: Everybody around you is just kind of staring at what's going on, but not with shock or startlement. They're alternating between looking at it and looking around at each other as if they're looking for something.
SHIFT: [I'm just going to continue work and kind of ignore what's going on because I know that if I join in, I'm going to be destroyed.]
FRIED: Ooh, I have two thoughts in my brain right now. I don't know if I wanna be a little silly or if I wanna be normal, but I think I'm gonna lean towards silly..
HOVER: [Can Hover skedaddle over and tell Kup "Please, no!"]
NARRATOR: He doesn't say anything to you. He just kind of looks at you and snarls. I'm not gonna have you roll for intimidation on that because that is an immediate scripted loss. Just... nope.
HOVER: [Skedaddles on out]
NARRATOR: At some point during the fight, Astrotrain reaches out a servo towards the crowd.
ASTROTRAIN: Hold old blue!
NARRATOR: Which everybody around you straightens up at. It was as if that was what they were waiting for. Suddenly, Kup is knocked off of Astrotrain by a huge fist to his helm. Who does it belong to? Motormaster. That's the fucking trigger. As far as you know, the big escape is happening right now, but something still feels amiss amidst all the chaos.
SHIFT: [I'm gonna follow that gut feeling and try to figure out what's kind of wrong.]
ROSS: The only person who would know something is wrong would be Jetrush because of that interaction he had with Slipstream earlier, but I'm gonna be honest. The action has already escalated to a point that even if you were to be like "Hey, that's not the right signal!", nobody would hear you.
MIN: So all three of us have worked together in the same environment for the last six hundred years? And kind of know each other, but not really?
ROSS: You're on, like, acquaintance terms, yes.
STRANGER: I'm assuming all the characters we've talked to so far are in the same room with us right now.
ROSS: Yes, except for Slipstream. She's the only one who's in a different room.
JETRUSH: [Since she's not here, I'm going to rush over to the other two and start freaking out.] That- that's not it! That's not the right code!
SHIFT: What the hell do you mean, it's not the right code?
JETRUSH: Slipstream tried the same thing like five minutes ago! It's just- it's not it! She was lying!
HOVER: I must be off! There is a patient waiting for me elsewhere! [Skedaddling to try and find Swindle]
JETRUSH: Can I come with you? I don't want to be alone!
SHIFT: [I'm gonna beeline to find Dragstrip to try and knock her out of it.]
NARRATOR: During your attempts to escape, some guards obviously get in your way. And now, the time for mercy has passed. It is time for everyone to roll initiative for a combat encounter.
STRANGER: Oh shit!
MIN: Oh dear.
FRIED: Let's go!
HOVER: [18 + 2 = 20]
SHIFT: [8 + 2 = 10]
JETRUSH: [8 + 1 = 9]
STRANGER: Oh, that's not very nice!
FRIED: Oh no!
MIN: By the way, I'm guessing we have no weapons on us or anything? We're just bare bones.
ROSS: Yeah, this first fight is very much a punch fight. Everybody's punching everybody.
STRANGER: I feel like Spiderman Noir, fighting a bunch of...
FRIED: Hard-boiled turtle slappers?
STRANGER: Hard-boiled turtle slappers! We're biscuit boxers right now, guys!
ROSS: Alright, we're starting with Hover. What do you do?
FRIED: Where are we right now?
ROSS: You are being stopped at the door by a bunch of guards standing shoulder-to-shoulder.
HOVER: [Can I try running underneath their legs?]
ROSS: Yeah, gimme a... I like performance!
HOVER: [2 + 2 = 4]
FRIED: Oh no, I don't like this.
MIN: Oh no!
NARRATOR: One of them kind of reaches down and grabs you by the shoulder to toss you aside. Not even with both arms, he just kinda picks you up by the forearm and tosses you away. And because you are so squishy and it's not an overt attack, I'm only gonna have you take one point of damage. Shift, you're up next.
STRANGER: How many guards are in front of us?
ROSS: There's like three, but they're all pretty stocky.
STRANGER: Stocky... Did they skip leg day, by any chance? Here's a question: Are they like, linked? Are they trying to make a single bricklined wall?
ROSS: Kind of, yeah.
STRANGER: Okay, so my idea is that I'm assuming that they're kind of leaning on the middle one to ensure that if anyone's running at them, they just bounce back off.
SHIFT: [I want to full on hit the middle one's leg really hard so that he crumples down to have a free entry spot.]
ROSS: Alright, ooh... Gimme an athletics check.
SHIFT: [16 + 5 = 21]
STRANGER: Oh, that's perfect. This is going to be amazing.
ROSS: Wow.
FRIED: Number go brrr.
ROSS: This is about the point where I start stomping on your dreams.
STRANGER: Oh dear. His legs aren't strong enough. His boots were not made for walking.
ROSS: And that is not what they will do!
MIN: He tried to crumple, but got crumpled instead!
NARRATOR: You manage to succeed, but the two that were sandwiching him kind of close in the distance before you can make your way through. So technically, you did still succeed. That guy is on the floor, on his face, trying to get back up. But the other two are now fighting mad. Jetrush, you're next.
MIN: I'm guessing there's no way they're gonna let us through, right?
ROSS: Absolutely no way. All the exits are sealed off in this exact fashion.
MIN: So basically fight or die at this point.
ROSS: Yup.
JETRUSH: [I think I'm going to follow Shift's example and try to get another guard with the same technique. Like, y'know the spot behind the knee?]
ROSS: Oh yeah!
STRANGER: You're gonna jellyleg them!?
MIN: Watch me get, like, a 2.
STRANGER: No, I believe in you, Min.
FRIED: Nat 20!
JETRUSH: [2 + 1 = 3]
MIN: I'm gonna fucking kill myself!
STRANGER: Oh no!
MIN: I need to stop speaking things into existence. It's been happening way too much lately.
STRANGER: You're manifesting it.
NARRATOR: Well, that's a good thing though because that furthers what I was planning on doing. Surprise! This combat encounter was a scripted loss. At some point, you all are knocked unconscious. This is not a TPK, this is just... unconscious. All is quiet and dark. When next your senses come back online, it's quieter than it was, returning to that low rumble from before only this time it's mixed in with more agonized groans from wounded mechs. Through the haze, you hear a voice. Specifically, it is directed at Hover, but it also just refers to all three of you.
KNOCKOUT: Oh, good. About time you woke up. You have no idea how full my servos have been around here with the one other medic on this floor being out of commission.
HOVER: I'm sorryyyy! I'm tired.
NARRATOR: You are not in the infirmary. You are in a storage room that has been refurbished to be a makeshift infirmary for the prisoners involved in the big fight. The guards wouldn't let them use the real infirmary because that's the punishment. Pretty much every single mech from your workroom is in here, and you are all greeted by a familiar red mech who toggles his plague-doctor-like battle mask to greet you. It is Knockout. Insert obvious joke here.
STRANGER: Is he a racer in this one or is he just a doctor?
ROSS: He's a little bit of both.
STRANGER: I understand that you already asked if Shift would have known Dragstrip because Shift has like good information on a majority of racers on Cybertron. Not in depth, but a good amount.
ROSS: The alt mode that I have for him is the make and model of the current Formula 1 medic car.
STRANGER: That one! Oh, shut up. That's so cool.
KNOCKOUT: Well, listen, there's someone in particular who's been asking for you.
FRIED: Is it the Swindle?
NARRATOR: He hikes his thumb behind him to a cluster of mechs all gathered around one of the piles of crates that are currently being used as gurneys. One of the ones in this little cluster that you recognize is Vortex, and another as Onslaught. These are the Combaticons. However, Swindle is not immediately visible.
ONSLAUGHT: Oh, thank frag you're here. He's only gotten worse. Now his vocoder keeps making weird noises and voices that aren't his.
NARRATOR: They kind of part to let you in to see what the damage is, and there, lying on the crates, is Swindle. However, to say that he was lying there would be to imply that he was doing so of his own will, which would discredit the efforts of Brawl to try and hold him down. He's thrashing, kicking, writhing, trying to get up and get away, but Brawl is... God love him, he is holding this bitch down. Despite being the biggest of the Combaticons, Brawl is having a great deal of trouble trying to keep his gestalt mate still. Knockout walks up behind y'all...
KNOCKOUT: Personally, I've never seen anything like it. His vitals are all over the place, but with no root, no apparent cause! For once, I'm at a total loss on how to cure this one.
JETRUSH: Wow... So he's just like that now? Just... no reason?
KNOCKOUT: I would hope not. Everything can be undone.
HOVER: [Can I do like a medicine check roll?]
ROSS: Yeah... Gimme a science check.
HOVER: [14 + 3 = 17]
NARRATOR: So you get a better look at him, and oh God is he worse for wear. What's happening is not immediately apparent.
SWINDLE: LET GO OF ME NOW, YOU [#@!%]ING [$#!%] SUCKER! HEY-HEY-HEY-HEY! WELL, LOOK WHO IT IS! [[Crikey, it's the Rozzers!]] HAVE YOU [[They're coming to take me away, haha!]] YET??
SHIFT: Is he, like, possessed or something?
JETRUSH: What's wrong with him?
HOVER: No one is taking you away. You are staying right here because we're bad at this.
KNOCKOUT: It's so strange. I've never seen something like this before. Wait, what's that in his intake?
NARRATOR: His tongue looks a little strange, like it doesn't look like the typical Cybertronian glossa especially for a mech of his make. It looks like it was made completely separately from the rest of his frame.
JETRUSH: That is freaky.
HOVER: I would like to grab that.
SHIFT: What, grab the tongue?
JETRUSH: Hover?
ROSS: Give me a dexterity check so that you don't get your servo bitten off. In fact, because he's moving around so much, roll me it with disadvantage.
HOVER: [9]
NARRATOR: You do manage to grab it, but before you can really yank on it, it slips out of your hand. Everybody just kinda looks at you like "...What!? What was that supposed to be?"
JETRUSH: Hover, what was that?
HOVER: I want to touch it. I want to touch it. I want to touch it.
JETRUSH: Why!?
KNOCKOUT: What's significant about his glossa?
HOVER: Uhh... Yes.
KNOCKOUT: Yes!?
HOVER: Yes! It looks different. I want to touch it.
KNOCKOUT: Uhh... Well, good luck with that. I've already tried it.
HOVER: [Can I try again?]
NARRATOR: Before you can, Swindle jerks his helm forward and then slams it back down on the crates a bunch of times. It's like he's trying to get something out of his helm.
SHIFT: [As that's happening, can Shift come into like help and pat his back? Because it sounds like you're describing him choking or trying to dislodge something.]
ROSS: Uhh, yeah, you can. But once again, dexterity check to make sure you don't hurt yourself in the process.
SHIFT: [10]
STRANGER: Oh, that's not that bad.
ROSS: Yes it is.
STRANGER: Oh great.
NARRATOR: In trying to get him to spit up whatever he's trying to spit up, he quickly arches his back and then slams it back down on the thing. He doesn't crush your hand, but he smashes it pretty bad. One point of damage.
SHIFT: Ghhk-! This cycle's just getting better...
HOVER: The patient is fighting back! The patient is fighting back!
JETRUSH: Oh wow. Are you okay, Shift? Is your hand okay?
SHIFT: Ugh! My hand's been bloody... grr!
NARRATOR: His optics are moving in all directions, sometimes independent of each other, and he keeps repeating different sounds that you've never heard.
SWINDLE: [[Bombs?]] [[Hyperlink Blocked]] [[I wanna go to bed!]] [[FUCK YOU, BALTIMORRRRRRRRRRRRR]]
SHIFT: Alright, so can we now just come to the conclusion that he's possessed now?
JETRUSH: Yeah, definitely. I think we have to get an exorcist or something.
FRIED: Can I roll to grab his eyes?
STRANGER: NO!
ROSS: UM????
MIN: Just gonna yank them out!?
ROSS: Hey, I'm the DM. You're not getting that. I'm sorry, just... mm.
FRIED: Can I try grabbing his tongue again?
ROSS: Well, you do have a way to see what he has seen.
FRIED: Oh wait! Can I stab his neck?
MIN: That sounds so wrong.
STRANGER: It does! What?
KNOCKOUT: Wait! You're not suggesting mneumosurgery, are you?
HOVER: It makes sense to me. I can do it in the neck, I can do it in the optics, or I can do it in the back of his helm.
KNOCKOUT: It's not a question of where you do it! It's- Wha- How did you manage to sneak in that level of delicate equipment?
SHIFT: Don't question it, Knockout. Don't question it. All of this is bloody strange in so many ways.
JETRUSH: You never know at this point. It just happens.
HOVER: They didn't take it from me.
SHIFT: What do you mean, they didn't take it from you?
JETRUSH: Well, they can't just not. I mean, they took everything I had.
STRANGER: OH.
MIN: Oh, okay. Is she doing that right now?
FRIED: She's asking permission to.
MIN: Well, I see why they didn't take it. I don't think they could.
KNOCKOUT: You... If you insist. If you've got some way to do it.
HOVER: Do you prefer the optics, the neck, or the back of the helm?
NARRATOR: The other Combaticons just look at each other and shrug.
ONSLAUGHT: Whichever one will deal the least damage, I suppose.
HOVER: Okay, then hold his helm still.
NARRATOR: Brawl grabs it and holds it in place to the best of his abilities. As you bend down, you can hear a sound coming from the back of his throat, but not quite from his vocoder.
HOVER: [Can Hover do a funny science and stick her hand inside to see what she can find like a claw machine?]
ROSS: Dexterity with disadvantage! Try not to get bitten!
JETRUSH: She's gonna get her servo bitten off. 100%.
HOVER: [16 + 1 = 17]
NARRATOR: You once again reach in there. It's not Swindle that bites you, but something else. It's not even as much of a bite as it is a sting. You didn't manage to grab what was in there, but it did get you a little bit. Not deep enough to really leave anything, but it did, like, scratch you. Do you go through with the mneumosurgery?
FRIED: Yes.
ROSS: Alright, I'm gonna have you roll science.
HOVER: [7 + 3 = 10]
NARRATOR: It's a little blurry, but you can see through his point of view. You can make out him falling behind the group of Combaticons because he found a hole in the wall and he's like "What? What is this?" Then, suddenly, from the dark depths of this hole, something leaps out and grabs him by his face like one of those facehugger aliens. And that's all you manage to see.
HOVER: He's got something living inside him!
KNOCKOUT: You're saying it's a parasite?
HOVER: Yes, there is something in his face.
SHIFT: Where the hell did he get it from? Is there an infestation or something?
JETRUSH: What is happening?
HOVER: Wall. The wall is evil.
KNOCKOUT: I haven't seen anything like that.
HOVER: There's things in the wall. He has a wall thing in his face.
SHIFT: Wall thing!? It's in the walls???
JETRUSH: I am not going near any walls.
KNOCKOUT: There's no holes in the walls. The guards would have taken care of that by now.
SHIFT: Oh, do you think the guards give a damn about our bloody safety? If it's nearby us, they wouldn't give half a damn!
KNOCKOUT: They give a damn about their own safety!
SHIFT: Oh, trust me. I've seen them walk around in the most disgusting areas, and then laugh in the face of danger. They don't give a damn.
HOVER: There's a thing in his face. Want that?
SHIFT: A thing? In his face?
JETRUSH: There sure is something in there. Like, living.
NARRATOR: In the middle of your conversation, Brawl's grip fails and Swindle stands up. And that is where we will close out the session.

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