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| - The Native Village is actually a rather large affair, with huge stone temples carved into intricate circuit-aping designs, inlaid with jewels. But as large as the village is, it is still dwarfed by the trees. In the centre of the village, by the statue is Paradigm and Mishap. Paradigm is sitting in a large ornate stone chair, with a pile of growing jewelry and precious metals at the feet Paradigm sits back in his big chair. "You'll find a way Mishap, they are after all, /free/. Gantry may be slow, but he isn't stupid, he'll get a message out whatever happens. We just have to wait" "I just wish they'd hurry up" Mishap replies, fidgeting nervously. "It's all very well being fabulously wealthy, but I'd like to be alive to enjoy it." "Yes, well" Paradigm mutters. "You know what they say, if you need something done right, /don't/ get an Autobot to do it. They're probably still filling up their shuttle with unleaded energon. Still, if the Decepticons do get here first, I'm banking on them going straight to the ship. We'll have more time" Autobot Shuttle has arrived. Mishap says, "Oh, that's very encouraging. Die later rather than die now? I'm planning on not dying at all"" Paradigm smirks at Mishap whilst he watches the natives add more riches to the pile. "Mmm in your case Mishap, I'm not sure anyone would notice the change in state. But death isn't an option I am allowing for today, there are no errors in my calculations" From Autobot Shuttle , Kup checks his gear, "Alright - let's get out there and find our wayward mechs. Try and keep a low profile, burst communications only, and keep an ear out for anything unusual." there's a wry tone of humor at the last bit of advice. Mishap, on the other hand, is sitting on one of the stone steps at the foot of the throne. "That's what you always say" he replies despondantly, idly flipping a faceted red jem between his fingers. From Autobot Shuttle , Pile-Up oooo!s at the mention of the universal greeting, bouncing in his seat a little. Autobot Shuttle cruises down for a landing on the outskirts of the village (preferably in the trees - although only if there's a big enough clearing for the shuttle to fit without crushing any of the native habitat of course). The shuttle settles down gently, then begins venting steam and unsealing hatches in a standard post-landing procedure. Springer leaves the Autobot Shuttle . Paradigm weighs another of the gems in his own hand idly. "And when have I ever been wrong, Mishap?" He shades his optics as he watches the ship come down. "And unless I am mistaken, which is impossible, that is an Autobot ship." He pockets the gem into a side-compartment and radios into his hastily repaired radio. "Gantry, come in. The Autobots are here, make your way back" You send a radio message to Gantry: *Bzzt* Gantry, come in. The Autobots are here, make your way back Kup leaves the Autobot Shuttle . Pile-Up leaves the Autobot Shuttle . You receive a radio message from Gantry: Where the frak are you guys?! I have Decepticons crawling over in my direction as we speak! Mishap perks up. "Finally!" the minibot says, standing up and waving his arms. "Hey! Hey! Over here!" Paradigm frowns as he talks into his radio. "We have found.... refuge in a native village, down in the valley we passed when we made our rather undignified landing. Get here now, or we leave without you." He snaps his head up. "The Decepticons are here. We should gather up our things and leave immediately Springer heads over to Mishap and Paradigm, glancing around the village as he approaches. At the mention of Decepticons he hefts his weapons significantly. "Yeah, we heard you guys might have some problems. We were expecting a warmer reception." He shrugs easily. "But I'm not complaining. Are one of you guys Gantry?" Kup follows Springer not too far behind. He lets Springer do the talking as he starts to quietly check out the area for signs of Decepticons and other unfriendly things. Pile-Up steps down after Springer and Kup, skipping a little bit, keeping quiet though while Springer talks to the folks down and about. Well he's mostly quiet, he seems to be whistling Little Black Raincloud from Winny The Poo. "Decepticons? I knew it.. we'd better start loading up all of the.. all of /our/ stuff into the shuttle." Mishap looks around as if a power loader will mysteriously appear and haul away the treasures that the villagers have heaped up in front of them. "You don't have a forklift do you?" Paradigm scowls at Springer, as he rises from his chair, walking towards the group of Autobots, past all the natives who scurry about. "Sorry, we have spent a rather busy day getting shot at, its hard to be welcoming in those circumstances. And no, Gantry is back at our ship, he will make his own way here." He holds out a hand, with a rather plastic smile on his face. "Paradigm" Around the Autobots, the natives stare in wonder, whilst the largest of them, a fat man in a beard, wearing the garments of a high priest falls to his knees. "Truly today is the day of miracles!" He roars Pile-Up blinks at the fat guy, head tilting to one side before he strikes a pose. "Behold! I am Emperor Fabulous! And this is Fabulous the Second!" raising a hand puppet, "And this is... Really Interesting Guy..." another puppet popping up. Kup looks dourly over at Pile-Up, "Put those away right now before I put them away for you." he says gruffly, "He's no Emperor and we're no miracles..we're Cybertronians." he sighs and looks around, "Y'know First Contact has never been my thing - these guys don't look like they'd benefit from an energon goodie." Springer takes Paradigm's hand and shakes it firmly. "I'm Springer. This is Kup, and Pile-Up. And there's a couple more Autobots back on our ship, in case we need back-up." He nods his head towards the others as he introduces them. "So there are Decepticons here? Maybe you should tell us the story..." "I could do with an energon goodie though" Mishap says hopefully, wandering over to the other Aubotots with his arms full of valuables. "Or something more high grade? Energon with Soba additive preferably." Paradigm smirks at Kup's words, hands behind his back. "If you'd bothered to take a look around, you would notice that we are /not/ their first contact. Notice the archetecture style." He motions a hand at the temples. "Crude carvings of circuits and transmission arrays, hopelessly aping a technology too far in advance of their own to comprehend. Someone visited them a long time ago, and thus anything technological is immediately from heaven." He walks over to the statue. "This seems to be their main deity. A crude statue, cobbled together year after year, obviously copied from real equipment. A satellite, I'd imagine. Think about that. The flotsom and jetsom of one civilisation being the base for another" Pile-Up awwws at Kup, putting his puppets away, shoulders sagging. "Technically speaking though, life forms of a non-robotic type might do poorly with energon goodies. Seeing as they'd be attempting to eat concentraited radioactive solid fuel... but what do I know... Damnit Jim I'm a doctor not a physiologist!" Kup looks to Paradigm, "You make a point, but I'm willing to bet that til you and your friends crash landed here - they'd never seen anything else like us before so technically, this /is/ a frist contact as far as our civilizations are concerned." he nods to Pile Up after he gives his expert analysis, "That's what I just got done sayin' boyo." he then looks back to Springer, "Decepticons here, eh? Do we have a range on them, or should I radio back to the shuttle and try and get a fix on them?" Mishap looks disapointed that there's no energon goodie forthcoming, but he's used to being ignored. "Forget how far away they are, can't we just run away?" Paradigm shakes his head as Kup is talking. "No idea. We left Gantry back at our shuttle, so it is a firm bet they went there first, so we need to leave quickly. Can you have your men help Mishap with our stuff" he motions to Mishap who has his arms full of treasure "and we can lift off before they arrive." Springer eyes the valuables that Mishap is carrying and the others piled up around the throne. "Where'd all this stuff come from? It looks like the sort of stuff these natives might have made. You're not seriously gonna take it with us, are you? And before we talk about running away and leaving quickly, let's see what we're up against. Where's Gantry now? What's his radio frequency, I'll just call him myself..." Pile-Up looks now to Paradigm, and then Mishap, then down at the natives, keeping quiet for now... waiting the perfect moment to unleash a torrent of teevee. Paradigm smiles coldly, handing Springer a small chip with Gantry's frequency encoded on it. "No, these are trinkets that we ah, /liberated/ from the Decepticon prison. The natives were just helping us move it to somewhere safe, that is all" "What? These?" Mishap looks down at the pile of jewels, golden-circuit jewlery and small statues that look exactly like the ones decorating every building in the village. "Yes... we got these from Cygnus Beta when we escaped. They're legitimate spoils of war. Part of the Decepticon War Chest. We had a lot of trouble getting them out of their vaults." As if to illustrate his point, one of the villagers walks up and, standing on tip-toes, helpfully adds another statue to Mishap's armful of loot. Kup looks over to Mishap, "Riiiiight. Another one like that, and I'll have to make sure my leg assemblies are ionized to repel the Igyak droppings coming outta your mouth." Mishap stares blankly at Kup. "Huh?" Springer watches dubiously. "I dunno Kup...I guess maybe the noblest thing to do might be to donate a bunch of this stuff to the natives, to show the Autobots' gratitude for helping out a couple of our brethren. What's this stuff going to do to help us? As long as it's out of the Decepticons' hands, I'd call it a win for our side." He takes a few steps away. "Now gimme a second while I just see what's keeping Gantry..." Pile-Up hops on his feet for a bit. "But whattabout alla pretty knick nacks? Can we buy 'em! Can we! Can We?!" folding his hands together, 'teeth' sliding into place to complete the grin. Paradigm smiles at Pile-Up as one would a small child. "Yes, quite..." he mutters, before turning to Springer. "No, I'm afraid that is quite out of the question. We don't know exactly all of what we liberated from the Decepticon prison, some of this stuff might be too technologically advanced for this race, or contain new metals. We must remove it all, or face further influencing their development as a species" Springer's expression hardens as he listens to his radio message. "Guys, we've got trouble. Gantry says there's Decepticons swarming around him, firebombing the jungle. He's not being fired upon yet, but he says it's only a matter of time before they do."
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