Who Drift and Wing
What His first proposal went bad. Try try again?
Where Ponyville, on that high mountain
When after the Leaves
Warnings? Drift continues to be an idiot.

Sometimes the ex-Decepticon craftiness came in handy. Like the way he'd gotten Wing to take charge to bring a still victory-giddy Ratchebo back to the barn in Seahaven. Sure, it had probably been a little mean to spin the chocobo up by telling her if she was a good girl, she'd get a jet ride. And sure, telling her that Wing stored special azouph greens in his cockpit was probably straight up unsportsmechlike.

But, uh, all's fair in love and war?

So he had some time while Wing was dealing with, well, all that mess, to get himself set up. He's arranged a note back at Seahaven, for Ratchet to 'find' and give to Wing...if that works out that way, which would hopefully bring the jet here. Here being the top of the mountain beside Ponyville, where Drift will carefully be circling the hillside, trying to find the best vantage spot to see the glowing rose gold of sunset. Romantic? He hopes so. And hopefully the extra fizzy energon he's got on a coolpack will amp up the romance.

[Drift looks a little nervous. After all, it's, you know, a little weird what he's going to ask. Like 'hey anyone want to help the mech who died because I was a huge jerkbot but no, seriously, I'm a nice guy now!' weird. ]

So. Uh. Hi. Drift, again.

[Just in case you forgot.]

I have a....a kind of weird question. If someone's, you know, a little....^dead, there's a way to, uh, fix that?

[And in case you were wondering why Drift is asking, here's the wispyist robot you've ever seen coming into view, leaning into Drift's communicube/rune/communirune/thingummy.]

I was told that this, ah, state...is temporary? Being a shade?

[Because as interesting as it is to walk through walls, scare people and maybe accidentally creepy!touch people, Wing would really rather be alive.]

Anyone know anything about that? Or I guess, spiritual things in general?

[Drift looks over at Wing, the fuzzy light shape that is Wing, at any rate, his expression halfway between hopeful and really, really sorry.]

Just...can you at least tell us it doesn't get worse?

ABOUT THE CHARACTER:

Drift has always been an idealist and more than a little intense. Even back in the gutters, he resented that anyone should be left out, neglected, or forced to turn to stealing just to survive. His idealism was what kept him loyal to Megatron—he believed in Megatron’s cause, and his belief kept him fighting, constantly, for Decepticon victory, without taking any time to consider the methods he was using or the consequences. His pursuit of victory led him to kill his own troops, for example. The ends—a world where the poor would defeat the rich, the powerless claim power—always justified any means.
His departure from the Decepticons happened when he finally took that a step too far, executing one of his troops in cold blood. They turned him over to his commander, Turmoil, who fully intended to execute him, when Drift (then called Deadlock) escaped, and crashlanded on an uncharted planet—Theophany.

There he met Wing and Crystal City: Crystal City showed him that a perfect society, a perfect world, could be formed without destruction. In Crystal City, refugees had created the world he had always wanted--no suffering, nobody left out. And Wing showed him (by beating him every day--it was the only thing he'd really listen to) that peaceful didn’t mean ‘weak’. (Drift series) Now, Drift is determined never to do that again. He believes, ardently, that peace, true peace, is possible and he desperately wants to help make it happen.

When he re-encountered Turmoil, he told his former commander that both sides had lost their way—the Decepticons had truly fallen, and even the Autobots were ‘a step away’ from where the Decepticons were at the beginning of the war. (Spotlight: Drift) What this means for him now is that he is not going to rush into violence anymore and only fight or attack to defend someone else (such as Pipes in MTMTE 4 and Ratchet in MTMTE 5)—thinking that his actions will save someone else.

The war finally ends, and Cybertron is a mess: Drift and Rodimus start the quest to find the Knights of Cybertron—the mythical ancient founders of their entire species, thinking that the Knights would fix everything. He’s been enthusiastic so far, but when they arrive at Theophany and find it ruined and deserted, he snaps, punching Whirl out for mocking him.

He’s reckless in battle—going out alone among the Swarm on Cybertron (though Perceptor got his back), fighting his way back just in time to help carry Ironhide off the bridge as Sunstreaker prepares to blow it. He is likely to endanger himself and go into the thick of a fight.

He understood Sunstreaker’s need for redemption, more than anyone, because he still feels the weight of his own past. (AHM 8) Likely, part of what drives his ruthless optimism is that need to make up for his own mistakes. He’ll be more likely than some to reach out across faction lines: he’s committed to the ideals of this quest, and bringing all Cybertronians together.

Since recovering from his self-inflicted injury, he’s become increasingly interested in the spiritual and mystical, so he tries to find deeper meaning or symbolism in things. And he will tell you his latest theory!

He is generally optimistic in canon (post Crystal City, that is!), trying to motivate the others on that last night on Cybertron before the Swarm would overrun them, and to reach out to Thundercracker later on Earth, though his attempts at friendliness were generally rebuffed by everyone but Rodimus.

For all his friendliness, he doesn’t form friendships easily: Ultra Magnus is wary of him, Ratchet is annoyed by his optimism. He desperately wants to be liked by Rodimus, to the point of doing reckless things to impress him. It probably doesn’t help that he has become a bit more gregarious, sharing his apparently, uh, ‘interesting’ theories about the Knights of Cybertron, the sparkeater, and the like.

He can be good with words: he apparently wrote most of Rodimus’s speeches, and his exhortation in AHM 8 (that Bumblebee snarked) was actually pretty eloquent. But he doesn’t deliver them because, well, he is sort of short in the charisma department.

But the optimism isn’t really natural: we see a few moments, such as when he laughed a little too loudly when asked if he feared the DJD (and then asked Ratchet that if the DJD was coming, to kill him), where the mask slips, and the cheerful attitude is a bit too hard to keep up. He realizes, just as the mechs remaining on Cybertron are discovering, that just because the war is over, it doesn’t mean that everything is healed.

In a nutshell: he hopes for a lasting peace, a good one, where everyone has a part, and no one's left out, and wants to be a part of it, of making things 'right', especially after he spent so much time making things wrong. He isn't afraid to die, but he is afraid of the overuse of violence or the misapplication of violence in place of justice (he likes to think he uses violence 'the right way').

Player Information
*Name/Alias: HK
*Your Journal: hellkitty 
*Age: Old enough to legally drink and then..a lot.
*Contact Information:  plurk ceruleancat

Character Information
*Character Name: Drift
*Character Canon: Transformers: IDW
*Age: 4 million +
*Race: Cybertronian
*Timeline/Pull Point: 

Canon point: End of MTMTE 4 He never canon updated, so this is the limit of his knowledge of the stuff 'back home'.

REAPP UPDATE: Wing and Drift had headed out to the wastelands, determined that they could do some good 'out there'.  

*History: wiki
Or the longform: Drift started in the gutters, one of the ‘lost sparks’ Whirl had referred to when speaking to Megatron—the idea that there were just mechs who were useless to society and no one would miss them. Drift had one friend, the cheerful, optimistic Gasket. Even with Gasket's friendship, Drift was hardly a happy mech: he griped that they were forced to steal to survive, forced to become criminals when they were only trying to sustain life.

Gasket got killed in a tragic accident. Drift overreacted, grabbing the security mech’s gun and firing it three times and killing all three security mechs. It was then he realized he had a ‘gift for violence.’ However, he had to go into hiding, and that’s when he fell in with the underworld, who trained him further, and who showed him, firsthand, how corrupt Cybertronian society really was.

When he met Megatron the war had already started and in the war he found a cause and a purpose. The corruption he saw, they could root out. Megatron gave him a new name to reflect his new status—Deadlock. He fought alongside Megatron himself during the early days of the war, and then as the second under Turmoil. He considered Turmoil to be a coward, who didn’t press hard enough for victory. His own leadership was harsh—he pressed his troops into battle against Turmoil’s orders and when one revealed he was going to rat Deadlock out, Deadlock shot him dead in front of his own troops.

These troops, predictably, turned on him, handing him over to Turmoil, who was preparing to execute him when Deadlock made a daring break, fleeing in an escape pod.  Deadlock was done with Turmoil, but not with the war: he was determined to get back up to continue fighting for the Decepticons.

He met Wing, whom he at first dismissed as a useless fool, though he ‘agreed’ to help him free the slaves—planning to double cross him. He made a break for the ship, but was stopped by a murderous slaver thug, who nearly destroyed him. Wing got him out of there—somehow—and got him rebuilt and showed him their underground city of refugees…and made a bargain (I’m….speeding up a bit now because you can read the wiki, right?) that if Drift defeats him in hand to hand, he’ll let him leave Crystal City. Drift never won.

Lockdown, who had tracked him to the planet, offered him a deal—turn over the strange Cybertronians to the slavers(because he’s been repaired so they know there were other Cybertronians there) and he’d be brought back to Megatron, presumably in Megatron’s good graces. He had a change of spark, when Wing confronted him upon his return, and rushed to tell the Circle of his betrayal, so that they could save themselves.

They came up with a plan to fool Braid and Lockdown into thinking there are only a few others, and a circle of knights volunteered to fight with Drift and Wing, even though they knew it would end in certain death, because Dai Atlas refused to assist them. This faith of theirs—their willingness to surrender their lives to protect their city—had an impact on Drift, as did Wing’s death. After the battle, Dai Atlas offered him the chance to stay, and gave him Wing’s Great Sword. Drift refused the offer, saying that he’d given his word to Wing to help free the slaves, and he had to uphold that. (Drift series)

He ended up joining the Autobots, after running into a rescue mission led by Kup. Kup and Perceptor and the others blew a hole in Turmoil's ship to free other captive Autobots (including some Wreckers). Turmoil recognized his former second in command by his voice, and the old grudge was renewed.

In the ensuing fight, Drift arranged for the ship to overload its engines and explode, managing to stop by the cells to rescue the fallen—and abandoned—Perceptor. They fell together, to be scooped up by Perceptor’s ship, and Kup offered Drift a ‘second chance’ and a spot on the new team he was forming. (Spotlight: Drift)

Not everyone liked Drift (not just fanboys!): Springer had his reservations, but none was more vocal in his opposition to the former-Decepticon than Bumblebee, who told Drift that he had, basically, no right to fight alongside them. Drift took these rebukes with equanimity: he cannot deny his past, after all.

So, to Earth, narrowly pulled from certain death by the arrival of Omega Supreme, to Japan and stand around among the apparently perennial cherry blossoms, and then back to Cybertron with the captive Megatron. (I’m….not going to include Infestation 1 if that’s okay? Mostly because I have no idea how to work it into chronology but also because he just…does his fight thing). Drift appeared unhappy, on Omega Supreme, as the other Autobots seemed to enjoy the spectacle of Megatron in captivity.

 On Cybertron, he, Rodimus, Optimus and Ironhide headed down under the surface, where Galvatron had determined to throw the Heart of Darkness into Cybertron’s core, which would allow D-Void to come through. (Galvatron, in his defense, believed this would actually save Cybertron.)

Drift started blurping binary code—as did all the other Decepticons—and started attacking the Autobots. He stopped himself (yeah, insert weeaboo ‘he’s so badass only he can hurt himself’) by stabbing through his own chassis, and thus missing out on Optimus's saving of everyone.

The war ended, and the peace began…badly. Bumblebee still didn’t like him and Drift started pushing the idea that the Knights of Cybertron, upon whom the Circle of Light had based themselves, and their home of Cyberutopia, were the key to a lasting peace. (And some horrible language thing about Dai Atlas being really Dei Atlas (because sure, Cybertronians and Latin, why not?)). Add to this that Perceptor discovered a holographic map inside one half of the now-empty Matrix. Rodimus became the face of this new mission—a quest to find these Knights and restore Cybertron to, in a sense, better than it was before. (DoOP)

The Lost Light, their Neutral ship, was sabotaged by Prowl, quantum jumping into unknown space with a hole ripped through the hull. This was the first of many ‘adventures’ the crew was to have: they retrieved the lost, and gained a new member, the mysterious Skids, but while they were debating what to call themselves,  they discovered there was a sparkeater on board. Drift wondered if this was a bad omen, and helped Rodimus’s dashing and heroic plan to destroy the creature by quantum-jumping it into the engine block. And then stood around admiring. A lot.

Next, he accompanied Pipes and Ratchet down to the planet of Messatine, where they discovered the medical facility of Delphi had been plague-marked—five days prior they’d suffered an outbreak of a vile disease called the Red Rust, which First Aid posited was a DJD biological attack. Pipes’s hasty action broke down the wall, exposing them to this plague. Drift ‘saved’ Pipes from a plague victim by slicing him into pieces, but it was too late: Pipes was infected, and he infected Drift while Drift was attempting to non-lethally control him. Ratchet freed Pharma from where he'd been 'trapped' (as far as Drift knew) in quarantine, and were trying to save Pipes in the Medibay when Pharma was abruptly flung into the room, covered with (minor) injuries. Two members of the Militant Monoformer Movement, who had previously sought refuge with the Delphi medics, had somehow been freed, and now revealed themselves as Decepticons, ready to attack.

REAPP UPDATE:  
While in the game the first time, Drift was cured of the Red Rust, did some favors for some of the First-Forged, and got the ability to fly and the power over time and space from Vector Prime and did some errands for Liege Maximo to make up for leaving Red Rusty footprints all over his place when he'd first arrived. 

In between all that: 

He also helped against the first attack of creatures, helping the J-Decker Build Team fight, in his amazing, slightly show-offy way. He wanted to face off against Tarn, but was dissuaded by Wing and Ambulon (who was probably tired of patching him up) especially after Tarn began terrorizing people with his sparkeater and using the network to advertise his kills. He helped with the construction of the Hub, and tried to warn others that, you know, having Tarn on the Law Committee was maybe not such a hot idea, but it's Drift, so no one listened to him.

He did form some close friendships: one with Vandal, who sought to reconcile him with Perceptor, and things were going well when...Vandal simply disappeared.  This loss upset him immensely and his helplessness to do anything useful haunts him.  He also had the experience of being turned into a little anime girl--which he did NOT like at all, being all small and squishy and having to deal with those ridiculous clothes! He would not have survived that, had it not been for Vandal.

He also became close with Barricade, and Barricade helped him get proper attire for a fancy party and also made a clockwork lizard, which he presented to Wing. As another mech in the 'not-quite/no-longer-really-a-Decepticon' camp, he found a good friend in pointy-faced Barricade, who taught him it was what you did, not what you had been, that mattered.

Wing is the best thing that's happened to him here, a reunion he had not expected, and he had arranged several trysts with the jet, in his incredibly sappy dating style, one including him having to make seventeen trips up one of Vector's towers, his cabin stuffed with pillows. He will, in fact, do anything for love. 

Out in the wastelands, he and Wing made a small settlement with their energon converter, and were happy to welcome Barricade to their number (who brought the good news that Tarn was gone), doing their best to try to find a way to live in harmony with this place.




*Personality:

Drift has always been an idealist and more than a little intense. Even back in the gutters, he resented that anyone should be left out, neglected, or forced to turn to stealing just to survive. His idealism was what kept him fighting for Megatron—he believed in Megatron’s cause, and his belief kept him fighting, constantly, without taking any time to consider the methods he was using or the consequences. His pursuit of victory led him to kill his own troops, for example.

That is, until he met Wing and Crystal City. I’m not trying to get all TWU WUB or schmoopy here: Crystal City showed him that a perfect society, a perfect world, could be formed without destruction. In Crystal City, refugees had created the world he had always wanted--no suffering, nobody left out. And Wing showed him (by beating him every day--it was the only thing he'd really listen to) that peaceful didn’t mean ‘weak’. (Drift series) He wasn’t wrong; he’d just lost his way, letting the ends justify the means.  Now, Drift is determined never to do that again. He believes, ardently, that peace, true peace, is possible and he desperately wants to help make it happen.

When he re-encountered Turmoil, he told his former commander that both sides had lost their way—the Decepticons had truly fallen, and even the Autobots were ‘a step away’ from where the Decepticons were at the beginning of the war. (Spotlight: Drift) What this means for him now is that he is not going to rush into violence anymore and only fight or attack to defend someone else (such as Pipes in MTMTE 4 and Ratchet in MTMTE 5)—thinking that his actions will save someone else.

However, since fighting is really his only skill, that’s all he can do: he’s muscle. Wrapped in perky.

He’s reckless in battle—going out alone among the Swarm (though Perceptor got his back), fighting his way back just in time to help carry Ironhide off the bridge as Sunstreaker prepares to blow it. He is likely to endanger himself and go into the thick of a fight.

He understood Sunstreaker’s need for redemption, more than anyone, because he still feels the weight of his own past. (AHM 8) Likely, part of what drives his ruthless optimism is that need to make up for his own mistakes. He’ll be more likely than some to reach out across faction lines: he’s committed to the ideals of this quest, and bringing all Cybertronians together.

Since recovering from his self-inflicted injury, he’s become increasingly interested in the spiritual and mystical, so he tries to find deeper meaning or symbolism in things. And he will tell you his latest theory!

He is generally optimistic in canon (post Crystal City, that is!), trying to motivate the others on that last night on Cybertron before the Swarm would overrun them, and  to reach out to Thundercracker later on Earth, though his attempts at friendliness were generally rebuffed by everyone but Rodimus.

For all his friendliness, he doesn’t form friendships easily: Ultra Magnus is wary of him, Ratchet (ahahah oh dear) is annoyed by his optimism. It probably doesn’t help that he has become a bit more gregarious, sharing his apparently, uh, ‘interesting’ theories about the Knights of Cybertron, the sparkeater, and the like.

He can be good with words: he apparently wrote most of Rodimus’s speeches, and his exhortation in AHM 8 (that Bumblebee snarked) was actually pretty eloquent. But he doesn’t deliver them because, well, he is sort of short in the charisma department.

But the optimism isn’t really natural: we see a few moments, such as when he laughed a little too loudly when asked if he feared the DJD (and then asked Ratchet that if the DJD was coming, to kill him), where the mask slips, and the cheerful attitude is a bit too hard to keep up. He realizes, just as the mechs remaining on Cybertron are discovering, that just because the war is over, it doesn’t mean that everything is healed.

In a nutshell: he hopes for a lasting peace, a good one, where everyone has a part, and no one's left out, and wants to be a part of it, of making things 'right', especially after he spent so much time making things wrong. He isn't afraid to die, but he is afraid of the overuse of violence or the misapplication of violence in place of justice (he likes to think he uses violence 'the right way').

The best summary, honestly, is the preview image for MTMTE Drift is trying too hard

REAPP UPDATE: 

A little older and a little wiser:  Drift still wants peace, but what he'd seen from the First-Forged has made him doubt that they have the same aims. He isn't 'wary' per se, but he will try not to throw his faith so utterly behind pretty words and displays of strength.  He is a little better at making friends, especially after his time in the Badlands, where no one's held his ex-Decepticon status against him in a long time.



*Powers/Abilities:
Great Sword: This is one of the artifacts Drift gets from Crystal City. The Great Sword is apparently a weapon of last resort as it draws power from the wielder’s spark and thus may kill the very mech who wields it! Drift uses it in canon to kill Braid, so it’s apparently not instantly lethal. Drift will avoid using this sword unless it is a very last resort.

Melee and hand to hand combat He’s not unbeatable. Let’s get that straight. Wing and Braid both get advantages over him. But he is…really damn good with guns, swords, and hand-to-hand unarmed combat. And admittedly, we never see him touch a sword before that final battle, so, in a rematch now, it’s not quite as likely that Braid would win. In later canon, though, we see him fight against some pretty impressive odds (how does he free himself from the Swarm, right?) so he’s likely to be one of the best fighters out there.

Honestly, what Drift does well is fight. He’s fast and powerful and good with weapons, both guns and swords and hand-to-hand. Wing would be his better at the latter, but not many others. And his bullheadedness means (as Braid notes in canon) that he has pretty impressive endurance.

Because he’s not particularly violent/aggressive, I don’t think he needs to be downpowered: he’ll try to avoid a fight unless it’s necessary (though he does goof on those sometimes) but if you want to limit, I’d be find with it.

Do I need to mention he turns into a car? He's actually in canon one of the smaller mechs--he's even just a bit shorter than Blurr!

REAPP UPDATE:

Because of his service to Vector Prime, he has the ability to know his exactly location in spacetime, and also can fly. Flying car. Yeah. That's...a thing.

*Inventory:

Great Sword

Two smaller metal blades

His OPTIMISM!

Cherry blossoms



*Starting Polarity:

 He was Vectorian, and got the powers of time/space ability and the power to fly.

Writing Samples


*First Person Sample:


[The feed comes on and there's a brief pause. Behold, citizens, it is your self-appointed morale officer here to officiate some morale. Drift knows he's not Rodimus: he lacks the other's flash and charisma. Still, someone has to keep spirits buoyed, right? Especially in the circumstances.]

I know we're all feeling a little distressed by recent events. But the important thing to remember is that our greatest strength is in working together.

I mean, who could have predicted that, right? A giant purple griffin? [He grins--it's funny, right?]

What matters is that we, uh, most of us, came through fine. A little wiser, maybe, than before, at least about griffins and blindspots [He pauses, giving his shoulder a rueful rub] and so on, but that's what life's about: learning from our experiences.

Remember, we should all focus on the positive. In ourselves and in others.

[He gives a little, self-satisfied nod. Not bad. Rodimus might have done it better, of course, but he feels really good about that.]

[Then he realizes the feed's still running. Oops. More closure!]

Till all are one!


*Third Person Sample:

[Note: since there's some canon evidence to believe that Drift's 'look on the bright side' persona is just that--a persona, and a bit forced at times, his private thoughts sound a bit different.]

The sky above him was a roiling reddish darkness, like some wound on the atmosphere. For a moment, he thought he was back on Cybertron: the toxic air thick and choking with radiation and pollution, the ground beneath them filled with the skittering menace of the Swarm.

But there was no city around him, here. There were no buildings at all, just a vast, craggy blackness biting into the sky, and the susurrus silence of a fitfully stirring breeze, wafting a rancid, sour odor against him, as though the very ground was corrupt. There seemed to be...nothing at all.

No, there’s never nothing. There’s always something useful, always something hopeful. You just have to look for it.
He moved, feeling--and refusing to feel--the stiffness in his joints. How long had he lain there, under this alien sky, exposed, vulnerable?

It didn’t matter. He was online now. That’s what should count.

His hands moved to his scabbards, feeling for his short blades. He relaxed, minutely, as his hands wrapped around the cold metal, and as he rolled up, he felt the dragging mass of the Great Sword underneath him.

Not unarmed, at least. It was both a relief and a concern and an old, rusted sense of bruised pride: had he been dismissed so thoroughly, so completely that he wasn't even worth disarming? But that question brought another: dismissed by who?

He bolted upright, galvanized.

Is this Messatine? Where was Delphi? Ratchet and the others? He swiped a hand over his face, feeling the wetness, realizing that the sour smell hadn't been coming from the sky, but from him. He was still sick: the Red Rust.

It all makes sense now, he thought, staggering to his feet swiping over his optics, his lenses streaking red against the bloody sky.

He looked around, trying to get his bearings, trying to spot some trail on the stones, the shifting sand. There has to be a way back.

They--the Triple M mechs, who had brought the plague--dumped him here, because they were cowards. They didn't have the nerve to kill him directly, expecting the elements or the DJD to do the dirty work. It meant they considered him dangerous something they couldn't take care of themselves.

See? The bright side: they know they can’t stop you, they know you are a threat, even sick, even half-blind. And that meant that Ratchet needed him. That was all that mattered: Ratchet, the other sick mechs at Delphi. They needed to be rescued. And Drift was the only one who could do it.

He'd find his way back. He'd find a way--somehow. Because he had to. Because it wouldn't end here. Not like this. He'd spent years in obscurity, wasted, ignored, thrust aside. He'd been powerless to change, or believed in his powerlessness.

He knew better. He wasn't powerless anymore.

Hang on, Ratchet, he thought, taking his first staggering step toward the East, where the sky seemed lighter. He trusted fate to guide him, to lead him to what was right. And hopefully away from the DJD. He was in no condition to face them like this. He wouldn't mind dying but not like that. Not like this, already half-defeated by a disease. He wanted a better death. After all this time, he wanted to die for a reason, doing something right.

Hang on. I won't let you down.

Final Notes: 
None I can think of?