Polyhex: The City That Never Sleeps (or Forgets)

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Seph-Blade
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Polyhex: The City That Never Sleeps (or Forgets)

Post by Seph-Blade »

Cybertron is broken.

Not by war. Not by peace.
But by something greater.
By something older.

The event is known as The Reckoning—a myth-shrouded cataclysm believed to be the final clash between gods, legends, or something worse. Some claim it was Primus and Unicron; others, the final battle of the Warlords. To this day, its truth is disputed by scientists and zealots alike.

What is known, is this:

The Reckoning tore the planet in half, creating a magnetic disruption so severe that entire hemispheres can no longer communicate. Travel between them is nearly impossible.

It also killed every hero Cybertron ever knew. Every Prime. Every champion. Every name worth remembering. Gone.

Now only remnants remain—fragments of power, ideology, and ambition—carving their own destiny in a world of silence and ash.

--------------------------------------------

The Great Cities of Cybertron

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Metrocon CityThe Last Autobot Bastion
A city of strength, nobility, and culture. Here, the resolve of the Autobots has been distilled and aged like a fine wine. The sweet weakness of youth has become a bitter, hardened resolve. Metrocon is the heart of Autobot endurance.

Motto: “Hurry up and wait.”

Image

PraxisThe Indestructible Citadel
A jagged fortress of towers and turrets, forged in conquest and cold calculation. The Decepticons rule here, not with brute force, but unshakable belief in their right to dominate.

“Rest through labor. Freedom through servitude. Unity through leadership. Death to our foes.”

Image

HelexThe Ash Pit
A city drowned in rain and choked by fire. No rulers. No law. Only gangs, outcasts, and scavengers surviving in ruins that echo with violence.

Come to Helex if you are strong. Come if you are mad. Come if you dare.

Image

PolyhexThe Paradox City
A city of sin and saints, of pleasure and paranoia. The first "open" city on Cybertron—Autobot, Decepticon, neutral, all walk the same streets. They don't trust each other. They don't need to. Because in Polyhex, everything has a price.
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Re: Polyhex: The City That Never Sleeps (or Forgets)

Post by Seph-Blade »

Cybertron has no heart. Only cities pretending to be one.

Metrocon prays. Praxis drills. Helex bleeds.
But Polyhex? Polyhex hums.

By day, its towers shimmer with light and song. By night, its alleys fester with shadow and vice. Neon signs flicker over market stalls that sell everything from illegal upgrades to forbidden energon cocktails. Politics, crime, pleasure, and power are all commodities here—and the only currency is nerve.

Neutral ground, they call it. But in Polyhex, nothing is truly neutral.

Tonight, something stirs beneath the static.

A signal.

Ancient.

Pre-Reckoning code.

Bouncing through dead relays and public grids.

Message Header:

“13 cycles past shiftchange. Warehouse Omega-19.
Come alone.
Bring what’s left of you.”


No sender. No encryption. Just coordinates and a challenge.

----------------------------
Warehouse Omega-19: The Forgotten Edge

Warehouse Omega-19 lies in the lower east sector of Polyhex, nestled between a collapsed energon rail line and the carcass of a gutted transit tower. Long ago, it processed military supplies for both sides of the war—one of the few neutral hubs allowed to operate in the early cycles of conflict.

After the Reckoning, it was sealed. Scavenged. Flooded with coolant runoff. Scrubbed from city records. Written off.

But tonight, lights flicker behind its blast doors.

And someone—or something—is waiting inside.

In Polyhex, you don’t ask why you were summoned.

You ask who else got the message.
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Re: Polyhex: The City That Never Sleeps (or Forgets)

Post by Scramble »

Scramble the gray Decepticon cassette-master slowly creeps his way inside the warehouse quietly talking to himself.
"I really shouldn't be doing this without informing the commander, but being first to investigate this strange signal is too good an opportunity"
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Re: Polyhex: The City That Never Sleeps (or Forgets)

Post by Seph-Blade »

The warehouse answers all who enter with silence… and cold.

The air is still, but not empty. It hums faintly with old power—residual currents shivering through cracked conduits like half-forgotten thoughts.

Inside, the space is vast. A hollow shell of alloy and shadow, long abandoned but never truly dead. Rusted cranes dangle from overhead tracks, their joints frozen mid-motion like the fossilized limbs of some long-extinct beast. The floor creaks with weight it hasn't borne in decades. Dust hangs thick in the air, disturbed only by the brave or the foolish.

A single overhead light sputters erratically, casting fractured beams across stacks of forgotten crates. Their faded seals—military, pre-Reckoning—speak of a time when this place mattered. Now they sit in rows like tombstones, their contents unknown, perhaps best left that way.

Somewhere deeper in the warehouse, something shifts. A subtle sound. Metal brushing metal. Nothing urgent. Nothing close. But not far enough to ignore.

On the far wall, a shattered terminal flickers to life, unprompted. A red glyph pulses once on the cracked display… and then vanishes.

Data pings echo through the localized net, too corrupted to make sense of. Garbled fragments drift through open channels:

:: Echo… Echo… Function… Unknown… Reboot… Omega… ::

There is no welcome here.
Only the sense that someone—or something—has been waiting.

Or worse: that it never stopped.
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Re: Polyhex: The City That Never Sleeps (or Forgets)

Post by Seph-Blade »

From the shadows above, a low click echoed. Not loud. Not threatening. Just precise.

A moment later, a figure detached itself from the high catwalk—graceful, silent, and far too clean to be one of the scavengers that usually haunted places like this. Seph-Blade landed light on his feet, wings folding in with mechanical grace. His optics pulsed once, scanning the unfamiliar Decepticon already inside.

“You tripped the terminal,” he said simply, nodding toward the cracked console mounted to the far wall. It flickered now in steady intervals, humming faintly as if waiting for a response. The red glyph that briefly appeared moments ago—sharp, alien, and unknown—was gone, but the echo of its presence still lingered in the air. He didn’t raise a weapon. Yet.

His optics drifted to the crates scattered through the loading floor. Most still sealed. Some damaged—jagged tears through old military plating. Each bore a faded pre-Reckoning seal. None looked recently disturbed… yet.

“Question is…” Seph said, turning his gaze back toward the newcomer, “are you here to learn, or to loot?”

The static on the terminal deepened for a moment—almost like a breath.
Last edited by Seph-Blade on Thu Jul 03, 2025 6:17 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: Polyhex: The City That Never Sleeps (or Forgets)

Post by Rhymus »

Magna Guard changed from his starfighter mode into a robot with a damaged dominator disc covering the cerebro-shell wound in the center of his forehead. He held one of his blasters in his right hand as he slipped quietly in through the roof access of warehouse Omega-19.

If Magna Guard detected any signal 13 cycles earlier, it did not catch his attention. He entered warehouse Omega-19 trying to sneak up on Scramble. Someone had stolen a half dozen NAIL files, and Magna Guard had a hunch that the thief was Scramble's hacker, Echo. Magna Guard did not know if any Broad Blast or Soundblaster types had any associates who shared Echo's body type (especially these days, with so many upgrading to sports cars and tanks and who knows what), but Magna Guard had not only seen Echo's body type in the security footage taken around the time of the theft, but also a gray Stryker Armored Vehicle nearby.

Magna Guard did not know or care what was in those files or who the rightful owner was. Maybe it was Barrage's boss. Maybe not. What mattered to Magna Guard was how much Barrage said the boss was willing to pay for them. Still, Magna Guard had no proof that the footage actually showed Scramble and Echo, and not just some randos with Echo's silhouette and the same vehicle mode as Scramble.

And now, someone Magna Guard could not see from this catwalk vantage point was talking to Scramble. Talking about looting this warehouse. Could something in here be worth looting?

What to do first? Loot crates, confront Scramble, or try to find out who was currently talking?

Magna Guard decided to go with the first and third options at the same time. He continued listening in on the conversation below, but tried not to reveal himself as he pried open a crate...
One shall stand; one shall fall; and the one who stands shall help the one who falls to stand once again.
--Rhymus (also known as STARS Commando 539, also known as transit)
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Re: Polyhex: The City That Never Sleeps (or Forgets)

Post by Scramble »

Scramble looks up at the bot talking to him readying himself.
"Well seeing as you already have the upper ground advataged I see no resone in giving you more by telling"
Still having not noticed the third bot's presence, slowly taking further steps inside the warehouse.
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Re: Polyhex: The City That Never Sleeps (or Forgets)

Post by Seph-Blade »

To Manga Guard (Rhymus)

The crate’s magnetic seal gave way with a whisper of ancient hydraulics. Inside, nestled in layered shock foam, were interface cores—cerebral shells used to encode, preserve, or transfer AI subroutines. Most were dark. One, however, glowed faintly with flickering teal light.
As Magna Guard leaned closer, his HUD flared—
:: UNAUTHORIZED ACCESS DETECTED — ECHO-33 ::
A whisper of code crawled across the signal net.

Memory fragment pending... pending... pending...
------

Seph-Blade stood like a statue carved from midnight steel.

His armor was a mosaic of matte black and deep violet—panels angled like folded wings, sharp-edged and purposeful. Energy pulses traced faint circuits beneath the surface, like veins of restrained lightning. A narrow visor glowed cold blue from a faceless helm, expressionless, unreadable.

The sigil on his chestplate had not been etched—it had been cut, precision-carved with a surgical hand and no room for doubt. Though it looked Decepticon it was modified perhaps some kind of offshoot or sub faction.

A sheathed energon katana hung at one hip, the blade’s emitter glinting faintly whenever the low warehouse light flickered. In his other hand, a compact high-caliber rifle rested at ease, not raised, but ready—like him.

There was nothing casual in his stance. Every servo was quiet. Every motion measured. He didn’t look like he would attack.

He looked like he already had.

To Scramble

Seph-Blade regarded the Decepticon in silence.
“Keep your secrets, then. I’ll keep mine.”
His voice lacked judgment—just a verbal shrug, sharp at the edges.
“I doubt we’re the only ones drawn here. And I doubt everyone who shows up will be from Praxis.”
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Re: Polyhex: The City That Never Sleeps (or Forgets)

Post by Scramble »

Scramble turns his head and looks around the warehouse then back up at Seph-Blade "So who are you? The one that owns this place or what?".

Scramble noticed something else moving around while looking around but acts like nothing.

Having been able to get away with the stolen files, this situation is bad while still carrying them but Scramble jumped on too much yet again.
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Re: Polyhex: The City That Never Sleeps (or Forgets)

Post by Rhymus »

:: Echo… Echo… Function… Unknown… Reboot… Omega… ::

The signal did not seem like it was encrypted, just corrupted and garbled so bad it was practically worthless. Still, Magna Guard thought he picked out the word Echo -- twice -- and that was the name of someone he was trying to find. He also detected Omega, and hoped it referred to the warehouse, not Guardian Robots.

He peered inside of the crate he had opened. "Brain module interface cores?" he muttered when he saw what was inside... and one of them was lit.

His HUD interrupted his thoughts. He cursed and he swore to upgrade his useless Heads Up Display. Did UNAUTHORIZED ACCESS DETECTED refer to someone detecting Magna Guard's unauthorized access to the crate, or had someone without authorization accessed Magna Guard's own brain module again? Being reprogrammed once was bad enough, and that had already happened to him... more than once. "I belong to nobody!" something inside him whispered, or screamed. But he did not say it out loud. This time.

And what was that bit about ECHO-33? Was that Scramble's hacker at work?

Time to get out of here, Magna Guard thought, before I lose my mind. Although, apparently he had a few extra brains in this crate. He wouldn't take time to grab all of them, plus someone might come to investigate his unauthorized access, and notice if they were all gone, but might overlook a few missing. He took the glowing one and several others, while still trying to listen in on the duo below.
One shall stand; one shall fall; and the one who stands shall help the one who falls to stand once again.
--Rhymus (also known as STARS Commando 539, also known as transit)
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Re: Polyhex: The City That Never Sleeps (or Forgets)

Post by Scramble »

Uneasy with this whole situation, alone trapped in a warehouse with two unfamiliar bots and haven't ejected any cassetticons yet what to do.
Started scanning the place for exits or options with my sensors while trying to buy time.
"So is your friend coming out of the shadows anytime soon or is he the shy creeper type?" I asked out to the room hoping to get the other one to reviel himself so i could get a better scan of him.
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Re: Polyhex: The City That Never Sleeps (or Forgets)

Post by Sideways »

A medium sized purple and yellow motorcycle approaches the boundary of the warehouse. It stops for a moment, and then circles the warehouse, looking for alternative entrances to the front entrance. Spotting what appears to be a path to the roof, the motorcycle's rider splits from the motorcycle, as the cycle transforms into a robot. The rider transforms into a grey "headmaster" and attaches to the robot.

The bot slowly and quietly makes his way up to the roof, but does not enter yet.
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Re: Polyhex: The City That Never Sleeps (or Forgets)

Post by Rhymus »

Magna was not happy about being noticed before he chose to reveal himself, but at least this time it would not affect his plans very much. He was already planning to leave before someone showed up to check on the crate of brain cores, and he wanted to speak to Scramble and Echo before leaving. Guard wished he could have seen who was already speaking to Scramble before meeting them, but having several blasters and other weaponry, plus a flying vehicle mode, he felt ready for fight or flight if either proved necessary. He jumped from the catwalk where he had been lurking, not noticing as he did so that the long-neglected catwalk bent slightly from his shifting weight as he pushed off. A stack of crates (the one on top being the one Magna had opened, and the one on bottom leaking some kind of oil or lubricant) began slowly, silently sliding towards the bent section of catwalk.

Guard landed on his feet on the other robots' level, as skillfully as Seph-Blade had earlier, but louder. Magna was an experienced fighter, and could move gracefully, almost silently... but when he came out of hiding he liked to make his presence known. He might be small, but he was powerful, like the Autobot Brawn or Malignus Pick-Up.

Upon first seeing Seph-Blade, Guard mistakes him for a similar-looking Cybertronian Magna used to know, although with different vehicle mode parts showing in robot mode. "Zap Blade. New alternate mode? That insignia is new."

Magna turned his attention back to Scramble. "I would expect a saboteur to recognize the wisdom of being the shy, spy, creeper type, Scramble," Guard said, "although apparently I need to improve my skill at that area. Then again, maybe you do, too. You tripped the terminal--" (he pointed to the same console Seph-Blade mentioned earlier) "--and who knows if someone's coming to investigate that." Magna did not mention he may himself be the one who unintentionally brought someone to investigate, by triggering an alert while opening the crate with the interface modules. "You should get out of here," Magna Guard said to Seph-Blade, before telling Scramble, "and you should come with me. I have something to discuss with you and Echo."
One shall stand; one shall fall; and the one who stands shall help the one who falls to stand once again.
--Rhymus (also known as STARS Commando 539, also known as transit)
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