We are a literate, intermediate to advanced AU Transformers RPG Based off of the first season of TFP with dashes of other incarnations sprinkled here or there. Characters from any continuity are welcome however must be restyled to match the TFPrime universe.
Active, with ongoing plotlines, we are always willing to integrate new characters into storylines once incorporated into the setting.
Jazz raised an optical ridge. Then grinned. "Oh really?"
It didn't take much to get Steeljaw to agree to a demonstration. As Steeljaw's shift was almost over, they poked at the security plans for a bit until Steeljaw's relief came, then headed to the sparring room. Separately, of course.
Jazz shook his head as Steeljaw emerged into the training room from the vents. "So...not judging, just curious, but have you got something against the corridors? Was there some traumatic floor incident I haven't heard about?"
Jazz settled himself in the center of the room, no guns, no blades. Perhaps not particularly realistic, but then again this was a demonstration rather than a real spar. He widened his footbase just a touch (he doubted he'd need to BRACE much against the symbiont's weight), hands up and turned to the ready, just like his cohortmembers had taught him. He grinned and waited, broadcasting a standard "ready when you are" glyph.
"Highly traumatic," Steeljaw replied blandly, setting his paws carefully at the edge of the vent, weight balanced for the leap down. "Involving my tail and Bulkhead's pede. And also my tail, and certain people's alt form tyres. And one particularly memorable incident of a stack of supplies and, again, my tail... I'm sure you get the picture."
He watched, attentive, as the mech readied himself. His own spark was spinning with a ragged sort of rhythm, prompted by the nervous power surge through his lines. He hadn't had cause to do this in quite some time; Neutrals, for the most part, weren't nearly as diligent about practicing with weapons as frequently as the greater factions did. Steeljaw, who had never had 'weapons', per so, had only an eclectic assortment of last ditch self preservation routines to draw on.
Still. He hadn't survived as long as he had by looks alone.
[Pit no, you haven't,] Uplink whispered, insubstantial and unreal but steadying Steeljaw's systems all the same. [Didn't design you to be a display piece. Go show him what you've got.] Steeljaw cycled a deeper ventilation, quieting the flutter in his tank, and focused.
Jazz had already seen him navigate the control console but Steeljaw hoped that the mech hadn't yet made the connection between casual use of mag-clamps for balance and the true extent of clamp proficiency for a quadrupede who had spent extended periods in zero gee. Most bipeds, in Steeljaw's experience, preferred to orient their spatial planes by 'up' and 'down' even in reduced gravity and, having defined those planes, to stick to them.
Steeljaw considered such orientation 'optional', at best, despite the very real drag of a planetary gravity against his frame.
It had been a long time since he had had anything to prove. The idea that he might be able to startle, even just a little, a mech of Jazz's skill, put a bit of extra coil into his hindquarters. Crouching, he leapt - not down, but diagonally across.
THUNK! His front paws came down on the wall to Jazz's left, clamping, momentum slamming his rear paws into position with another muted thunk, front paws unclamping as he used the recoil to defy gravity. Faster than a mech could cycle focus in an optic he was airborne again, straight up, not down.
THUNK against the ceiling, Jazz already twisting to track him, but gravity was working for the symbiont now. The coiled momentum of his hindquarters launched him in alignment with the planet's pull, slamming him heavily, claws and teeth first, directly at Jazz's helm.
Jazz wasn't entirely sure what he'd been expecting. Security mech skillsets often overlapped with spec ops, though, particularly in the realms of preferring fast and agile and Staying Away. So the speed he'd been expecting. Gravity being optional he'd half-expected, given Steeljaw's preferred methods of getting around and his tendency to mag clamp on the walls as a matter of course.
He had NOT, really, been expecting a faceful of symbiont right off the mark.
Jazz was fairly sure he made an undignified glitch of surprise as he got his hands up, instinct driven into hydraulics and struts to keep sharp things like claws and teeth away from him. His arms weren't long enough to hold Steeljaw at a safe distance, so he went for the next best thing: Staying Away. To his chagrin, he was too surprised to sidestep and turned his hands to meet the blow instead, negating the instinct to have knives ready in them for the attacker to skewer himself on.
Steeljaw slammed into Jazz's upraised hands with all the power of his own leap and gravity behind him. Jazz's sensors flashed hard with the shock, then gripped the collar fairing that had hit his hands first. Jazz bent with the blow as Steeljaw's paws and most of his weight hit Jazz's shoulder armor, absorbing the blow with bent knees, then using the crouch as a spring. Hydraulics whined, putting all of his leg and arm strength into raising and tossing the symbiont away from walls and into the center of the room. As soon as Steeljaw's weight left his hands, Jazz used the momentum to throw himself forward into a cartwheeling flip that ended with him crouched at the ready again.
"Hah! Speed, check. Unorthodox attack vector, check. Bearings of steel, check!" Jazz shook out one wrist, grinning. "But what happens when someone's got ahold of you? Eradicon armor's a hell of a lot better than mine, and their training's gonna be to grab and smash." Jazz advanced, against his function class with a head-on rush that aimed to be a demonstration more than a viable attack. He'd just have to trust Steeljaw not to tear him up too badly. Given Steeljaw's courting of their favorite medic's favor, Jazz figured that was a good bet.
The grab he expected. The throw he didn't and it caught Steeljaw by surprise before he could latch on securely, letting Jazz heft him back into the air.
He twisted hard before he ever hit the ground, orienting paws underneath himself in a fluid snap. It tore a dull ache through his recently repaired linkages and he snarled to himself, reminding himself that there were more limits than there had been previously and that Ratchet would - rightfully - have his plates for scrap if he damaged anything again.
He came down with another thunk, claws and clamps steadying him before he could slide across the floor, momentum recoiling back through his hindquarters once again. He had launched himself before Jazz had finished noting everything Steeljaw already knew, both of them in motion in a headlong collision. Jazz aimed low, aiming to snatch. Steeljaw aimed lower, sliding narrowly beneath the mech's hands, and twisted to jump just as he collided with one bipedal leg.
Instead of taking the larger mech down Steeljaw went up. Mag-clamps that functioned on ship and building walls functioned just as well on mecha armor plating and Steeljaw swarmed upwards, claws not even needed as he scaled Jazz in a tight, ever moving spiral around legs and torso. Aim for the sensor clusters, a well meaning ex-frontliner had once told him. Steeljaw hadn't asked why but had found it useful advice all the same, paws almost dancing across standard sensor suites in a patter of mag clamps slammed on and off, and it was more than enough that it drew a yelp from his opponent.
All in all, it took less than one nanoklik from floor to Jazz's chassis and there he slammed to a halt, clamps sealing him to the mech's chestplate, claws hooked into shoulder joints and just dimpling the metal of the Autobot's plates with a clear warning of impending punctures through plate and hydraulics both. Jazz had managed to twist and get one arm up, shoving it between his own throat and Steeljaw's teeth. Robbed of the easy attack Steeljaw took the forearm instead, fangs just touching metal. He shook his last holdout free as he pushed upwards; plates flared all along his neck, thick and thin silver tool tendrils - micro EMF scalpels, crystal cutters, metal cutters and welders - sliding out in a bristling fringe that aimed for the Autobot's blue visor.
Steeljaw froze there, cycling hard, claws and teeth conveying a threat backed up by waving cutters that circled just shy of an optic band. He had, he knew, lost track of Jazz's free hand - the mech could undoubtably kill him easily, but Steeljaw was willing to bet, against most mechs, that he could take out optics and do damage to hydraulics first. That Jazz was not 'most mechs' just made him a little more static high, his glyphs blurred at the edges with system overdrive. ::Point?::
Jazz had a nanoklik to realize that Steeljaw was getting in close again. He went to sweep his hands down, grab the symbiont at midthigh or something...and then Jaws had engaged the first magclamp and Jazz's sensornet had gone absolutely staticked slagging haywire.
That much magnetic force applied to delicate sensors made his leg go numb, then tingle, then hurt like slag, then feel GOOD in ways that Jazz hadn't experienced since that one time with the shuttle crew, then go back to hurting again with a side of twitching ITCH.
Then the symbiont had cheerfully done it again and again and again and again and again as he climbed Jazz like the world's biggest cat tree. By the time he got up to chestheight, it was all Jazz could do to control his limbs and cut off the obvious throat shot.
The mane full of microtools to the face just...won. Jazz was a big enough mech to admit it when he'd been schooled.
His glyphs stuttered as he laughed. :...point! Game! Match! Oh holy Primus...:: Jazz's joints wobbled, still parsing the feedback, and the honest, delighted laughter wasn't helping. He solved the problem by getting his free hand on Steeljaw's back to hold him steady against his chest and just...falling to his knees, then all the way back onto his back, still laughing.
When the laughter had settled down to chortles and Jazz's sensors felt like his own again, he snickered once more and said, "Point made, my mech. Point very much made." He snickered again, finger flicking toward Steeljaw's mane. "And in other news, I SEE. Security, hmm? Security installation and analysis, hmmm?"
The microtools that had waved so faux-menacingly in front of his optics had been very familiar. Jazz still had some of the installed, or modular versions of them tucked in his subspace. Those particular models were only useful on a very, very limited number of things. Things which, as the humans said, one was usually breaking and entering.
Steeljaw unclamped his paws once Jazz was horizontal, tucking them underneath himself to settle into a lump atop the mech's chestplates. The laughter was contagious; his own tail looped, audios pricked in a delighted grin, field flaring pleased smugness and optics half dimmed as he cycled his systems back to normal. Giving his head a shake, he smoothed all of the tools back into place once more, invisible beneath the smooth overlapping plates of his throat.
"Security," he agreed, tone haughty even as his EM flickered unmistakable silent laughter. "We designed it, installed it, and then my job was to erase all memory of the system and test it. If I could break it then it was back to the planning board to improve it." He turned one forepaw gripping pads up, claws out, to examine the edges. Finding one duller edge that had slipped on him - unneeded when backed up by clamps, but he had felt it - he brought it to his mouth, chewing for a moment, teeth scraping over the claw at angles that sharpened both. ::Some mecha may also have occasionally paid us to 'test' other individual's security systems and prove it by extracting various items, but that was hardly the majority of our work.::
Steeljaw took the claw out of his mouth, re-examined it, found the condition satisfactory, and tucked it back beneath himself. Jazz was a comfortable point of warmth beneath him, encouraging his systems to relax after the rush of 'combat'. He flicked his audios at himself, swallowing the annoyance. He really ought to move, and not just for the polite nicety of letting the other mech up. Vorns of experience had taught that noticing the warmth was the first step on a sloping incline to needing it, but there should be several orns left before he truly NEEDED anything and indulging the desire to curl up next to the warmth of another spark was just setting himself up for making those orns more miserable than they had to be.
Despite the clarity of the logic, he stayed where he was. Just for a klik or two. Besides, Jazz was still examining his concealing plates with every sign of pleased professional interest, and the frame size difference meant it was difficult to do any close examination without being nearly - or actually - on top of the other mech.
It was as good an excuse as any.
Steeljaw set one forepaw to its lightest clamp setting, barely a brush of magnetics, then released it and activated the other one, switching back and forth and alternating in a slow, steady rhythm atop fixed points on the other mech's chassis. "A frontliner I shipped with early on suggested clamps to sensor nodes. He also advised that most large mechs - and nearly everyone is larger at my size - often expect smaller mechs to run from them. It stalls their protocols when you run at them instead. It's really only good one on one and it only works once, but it does work and it's saved my aft a few times."
He tipped his head slightly, audios arching in another silent grin. "My claws are rated for industrial building materials, inside or out. I've found they'll pierce most armor but it's redundant, really - the clamps keep me locked on, and who needs to shred armor when I can fit my entire leg up to the shoulder into most warrior class joint seams? Even if I can't pierce armor, I guarantee I can shred hydraulic and fluid lines."
Shrugging slightly, he 'walked' his still rhythmically clamping paws up to the points on Jazz's shoulder where he had hung on during the attack. "None of which helps worth slag if they get a fix on me first, or at a distance. I'm not defenseless, but I'm no fighter." Leaning up slightly, he pressed a little more weight but no more magnetic force into the alternating pulse. "I've also been told by several older mechs that this is remarkably soothing to stiffened relays, but let me know if it's too hard."
Jazz certainly was the last mech to give Steeljaw slag over having been a thief, so he just smiled at the symbiont's revelation. Like any of it really mattered anymore.
The magna-massage was a surprise. A pleasant one. Very pleasant. Against Jazz's spec-ops-grade sensors, that level of EM, the sensation tipped from soothing into downright pleasurable. He wondered if this was a seduction or just Steeljaw not realizing exactly what he was doing. The former would be kind of surprising, not that Jazz would mind or object in any way (try anything once, twice, three times just to make sure was his motto).
"I getcha," he responded. "Believe me, spec ops is totally familiar with bringin' psychology to a fight. You feel good with the level of defense you've got, that's fine. If you want something with a bit more range, though, just let Ratchet know."
He shifted as Steeljaw's magnetics washed over a pair of particularly sensitive transformation seams in his shoulders. He let static bleed into his voice just a touch, keeping his field friendly. "N' your friends were right. Hitting sensor clusters with those magnetics is...interesting. Most mechs, through frontliner plating, it'll make 'em twitch and jerk some. I uh...ain't got that much plating, so it feels kinda...good. Maybe better'n you're really going for, if you know what I mean?"
Steeljaw froze is mid motion, one paw just skimming Jazz's armor, the other still lightly clamped, his own field gone flat. In the next moment he might as well have teleported, abruptly there and gone and two arm lengths removed from the saboteur across the training room floor. He sat stiffly, paws tucked neatly beneath him, tail curled around them except for the tip that was twitching sharply. His plates flared in asymetrical surges until Steeljaw, with a huffed vent of exasperation, twisted his head to swipe his glossa across the ones at his shoulder, back plates reluctantly shivering into place.
"My apologies," he said a bit stiffly. His field flared embarrassment, then flatlined again, rigorously controlled. "The mecha I had done that for before were either war builds or industrial grade - the ones who taught me those defense tricks. I was told it was a soothing way of easing tightened hydraulics without having to actually get underneath the plating to smooth it out."
He gave himself a quick shake, optics not quite meeting Jazz's. "That was... unintentional." Then, with another brisk shake, and in a sharper whiplash of a tone, "And I'm not sure what your understanding of quadrupede frame abilities are, but if it was as simple as 'go to the medic and ask' you can be assured I would have gotten longer range weapons well before now." He sat back on his haunches, raising both forepaws in a wry mockery of attempting to hold an imaginary weapon or aim forelimb blasters. "It's not exactly useful, now is it?"
He settled his field, burying the latent charge there and pushing himself up onto his elbows. "Well, obviously nothing arm-mounted or hand-held. But there's other places to mount weapons. Shoulders, hips, maybe?"
Jazz curled up, continuing the motion forward so he went from leaning back on his elbows to lying on his front, chin propped on his hands. "Don't be embarrassed, by the way. Easy mistake to make. And you're completely right. I do the same thing to Ironhide's joints and hydraulics when he's got himself clenched into a knot. Puts him right to sleep. S'not like I'm offended or anything."
He wasn't. Symbionts had their own niches in Cybertronian culture, but just what that niche was depended on who you asked. Some mechs were convinced that symbionts were nothing but drones, projections of the carrier's will. Jazz, however, had served on the Nemesis. He had served under Soundwave. He had served with RAVAGE. He had seen what Ravage had DONE to one very, very unlucky 'Con who had made the mistake of treating Ravage as if he was a drone.
Jazz was very, very aware that symbionts were (or at least could be...Jazz had also met Laserbeak) entirely autonomous personalities, and he had no doubt that Steeljaw was one of those. Jazz was no more offended than if someone'd bumped him the wrong (or right) way in the corridor. Especially since Steeljaw had been trying to be nice.
Steeljaw resisted the urge to polish another spot on his shoulder. "Well then," he said gingerly. "I suppose we can just... forget that happened."
Standing up, he shifted consideringly from paw to paw, then turned and pounced, first one way, then the other. "Shoulders," he announced, "would frag my balance. Completely slag my jumping. Not worth it. Hips.... hmmm."
He tried a few more jumps, ran halfway up a wall, tried again in a series of leaps that took him back down to the ground. Huffing, he ran at the far wall, slipped tail over head in a sinuous motion that turned him around and effortlessly launched him back in the opposite direction, then did it again only to come up short mid-turn with a horrific screech of metal claws and the sharp thunk of magna-clamps locking on. Gritting his dente, Steeljaw grunted as inertia fought against clamp and clamp won, rocking him back on his paws.
Steadying himself, he glanced back down his own frame, then snorted and looked at Jazz. "Notice anything wrong?" he asked. He wiggled his hindquarters, which were nearly parallel with his forequarters. "I'd shoot my own fool head off. Or cut myself in half, one or the other."
Unlocking his clamps, he stumbled slightly, hiding a wince at the ache in healed welds as he settled back down, paws curled underneath him. "It's a pity," he said thoughtfully, "not to have something either tail or even jaw mounted, but both would have to be very lightweight and small, which pretty much makes it pointless." He paused for a moment, then vented a groan and dropped his face to the floor. "Oh dear Primus, forget I said that. No one actually needs yellow lion Voltron joke fuel."
All right, Jazz, DISAPPOINTMENT is not the proper response here. Dutifully ignoring it as suggested IS. So get on it.
Jazz propped his head up on one hand to watch the demonstration, but had to agree with Steeljaw. The symbiont would probably need a serious amount of targeting and proximity sensor capacity added on to deal with just that problem. Likely not worth it.
At the mention of Voltron Jazz cocked his head and consulted the Internet. He grinned a moment later. "Nah. Now, you come up with four quadruped symbiont gestaltmates, that's another story...." He eyed Steeljaw's tail. "And I dunno. Maybe a small version of ...whatchacallit, the kind of accelerator rings they use on laser cannons. I bet you could at least get something with more punch than your laser cutters. Something that'd stand a chance of getting through an optic to punch through processor armor. Might need new power cells somewhere for it...." Jazz waved a hand, setting it down so he could flip up into a handstand and then arch over to push himself to his feet. "Could ask Ironhide. Might never have designed for a quadruped, but I bet he'd enjoy the challenge."
Steeljaw flicked an audio, automatically checking - Ironhide, next in rank above Jazz, weapon specialist, and he and the large red frontliner had had little to do or say to each other except a passing nod now and then. Still, by all reputes, the Autobot was quite proficient at his job...
...and he, Steeljaw, shouldn't even be thinking about it, except that sitting in the middle of a base full of mecha armed to their optics had a way of making one feel slightly inferior and perhaps a bit lacking. And there was an undeniably juvenile sort of enthusiasm in the idea of being able to hold his own instead of running for cover.
And maybe just the smallest amount of glee in watching something explode because he had made it do so. It had been a long time since he had worked micro-explosives for breaking and entering purposes, and blaster fire - in practice, not in combat - always looked so fun.
Or, as Uplink fondly whispered to him, [Admit it, you just want to make things blow up.]
It was self defense, he consoled himself, not buying into the grand Autobot cause. Saving his own aft came first.
"What price?" he asked aloud, tail tapping thoughtfully against his feet. "Weapon systems aren't cheap and I don't have much to trade. Do you think he'd accept some sort of comparable service in lieu of goods?"
The question took Jazz a bit by surprise. He'd been in the Autobots so long that the idea of paying for weapon upgrades never even crossed his processor. Even without a weapon specialist in your cohort, anyone skilled in weapon upgrades was usually willing to make you hit a little harder or better given time and supplies. Just like Jazz was always willing to teach someone to knife fight or get out of cuffs and chains. You never knew when that someone'd need that skill to help YOU.
But. Neutral, Jazz reminded himself. Preserving the capitalistic barter system, because even though they were a group with similar interests, they weren't a faction and didn't usually band together in large numbers. Altruism was in short supply when you'd likely never see the mecha again.
Jazz considered. Ironhide likely wouldn't have all that much need for a hacker or coder, but such skills could definitely net Steeljaw some actual cash that could be used to get OTHER things that Ironhide might need. "He might do it for the fun of the challenge, more than anything, but yeah, he'd be willing to trade." Especially if Jazz said, No, really, even if you don't want whatever you're bartering for, barter anyway or you'll make the Neutral nervous.
And Jazz, he realized, really wanted Steeljaw to get his upgrades. He was well aware that the Neutral was NOT a card-carrying Autobot, but Jazz liked him and he preferred all the people he liked to go about usefully armed when there were 'Cons about.
Jazz stretched, scraping full body against the floor as he did so. He could feel micro plates popping back into place, joints aligning. He let all the tension go with a huff, faceplanting into the cool concrete. "If you can scrape up some human cash, I know there're some materials that're energy-intensive to make that might be handy to have around. Might have some other coding or small fiddly bit projects for you, too. Pit, offer to stand his monitor shifts for awhile might do it. I'm sure you can work something out."
Jazz tilted his head, laying his helm on his hands and sifting through glyphs of friendly affection, concern, and support for something not likely to earn him a mocking. "Seriously, though, I think you should do it. I know it might be a pain at first, but...it'd honestly make me feel better to know you've got a bit more firepower if you need it."
Steeljaw flicked an audial briefly at the mention of human funds, wondering if Jazz knew of, or was trying to find out about, his various accounts. Not that it mattered - Steeljaw would bring them up himself, if the conversation warranted it. Nothing at all illegal there, excepting for the lack of proper human identification, and his hacked makeshift personas were certainly strong enough to hold up to most internet transactions. If the Autobots needed raw materials in bartering exchange, he supposed he could set up a mailing box, or ask one of the resident humans - Mrs Darby, perhaps - if she would mind accepting a delivery.
All of which implied that he was actively thinking about it, slaggit all to the Pit. His claws scraped lightly across the floor, tail whipping back to curl, twitching, around his pedes. Part of him... really wanted it, frag it. In part because it was an upgrade, and it had been a very long time since he had been in a position to barter for any kind of upgrade. There was still a traitorous part of him that didn't care about factions or wars and only remembered the youngling excitement of being promised upgrades, and the long interminable wait for said upgrades, culminating in the bursting elation of the promised day finally arriving and it was... birthdays and christmases and hanukkahs and easters all rolled into one, as the humans might say.
The older, more rational part of himself noted that no one who was Neutral, and expected to stay Neutral, and to stay alive while being so, packed much in the way of weaponry. For good reason. He'd survived eons without it. Taking it now, from Autobot hands, was just asking for trouble.
[No Neutral presence, no ship, no way off this rock,] Uplink reminded him. [Might not be a bad idea, especially if all it costs you is the local currency.
"Oh, shut up," Steeljaw hissed sub-audibly, the sound only emerging as an agitated sort of drone from his vocalizer. "You just want to blow things up too."
Drawing in a deep ventilation, he expelled it in a rush. "I'll think about it," he told Jazz aloud. "No promises. This... isn't really my thing."
Jazz's audials were keen little mechanisms. What would be nothing but noise to others, Jazz's audials caught as a pattern to be decoded. It was distorted, so he didn't catch it all, but it was enough to tell that Steeljaw was either talking to himself or...well...to someone.
An odd habit, but one that Jazz had seen before. He could only hope that Steeljaw's reasons for it were less unpleasant than the hacking-induced glitches that Jazz usually saw.
Jazz pretended he hadn't heard, reaching out a hand to lay it on the floor near Steeljaw. "I know. I've known enough Neutrals to know that this is weird for you. So take your time. No pressure, 'kay?"