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.
Searching the building for anyone else should keep Sunstreaker and Starfall occupied for a bit. Prowl just only hoped that Sunstreaker still remembered proper police procedure and would try to avoid disturbing anything she found too much beyond securing the scene. That was always the gripe of the criminal investigators, SRT blew up all the doors and trampled the energon trails...
His attention was drawn away from the panel for a moment towards Petrichor, and he gave the femme a nod to go ahead and crank on the headlights before he advanced towards the computer console, typing in the general access code to start up the system.
“Windshield had this whole place wired. Smart move for a deserter...Decepticons do not take treason lightly...”
Well, neither did he, but as he tried to access the most recent security footage he trailed off and frowned at what he found. Or more precisely, what he didn’t find.
The system was blank, no recent footage more than a day or two old.
Prowl pressed his dentia together in an irritated growl before he turned to Petrichor. “Do you have any specialization in computer systems?” He asked quietly, but something told him that they would probably come up blank here.
Post by Sunstreaker on May 5, 2022 12:55:06 GMT -5
Sunny was wishing she had a door to blow up. Ops with the SRT were cut and dry; simple, just how she preferred it. She'd never shared Prowl's inclination for investigation, which might've been why she found herself continually selected to run ops for him. Despite the obvious walking-metaphor behind her, Sunstreaker was the hammer to Prowl's scalpel. Starfall was the hammer to Sunny's scalpel, of course. And Petra was some.... long... instrument? The ex-SRT officer gave up with the metaphor, and continued to sweep through the building.
It was all uneventful, just how Sunstreaker had dreaded. She'd carefully weaved her way through Windshield's abode, headlights slowly scanning for anything in or out of place. Nothing had immediately jumped out at her upon a first pass, however. No signs of struggle, haste, disturbance... nothing. None she could find, at least. Either way, Sunny left everything just as she'd found it, and took mental notes.
Whatever happened, it likely hadn't happened here.
She lightly threw up a hand for Starfall, indicating that they should take a momentary pause. Thumbing the comms, Sunny was quick to call out their progress. "::Sunny to Prowl, place looks empty. No obvious signs of struggle, disturbance, nothin'.::"
As she peered around the hangar, Starfall found it hard to stay focused on the task at hand. For all of the searching they were doing, there didn’t seem to be anything of note, and by the looks of things, she concluded that Sunstreaker was feeling much the same. Her mind wavered between boredom and anticipation, hoping that something might yet happen that would turn this into more than just a trip outside.
And yet, the giant femme couldn’t help but find optics drawn to some of the minutia and other details of the hangar itself. There remained nothing out of the ordinary, but that was what was drawing her attention. For her first trip within an actual human construction, Starfall’s mind was racing as she soaked it all in. For the other bots it may have all looked like stuff they’d seen hundreds of times other in their time on Earth, but to Starfall so much of it was new, and her excitement at such a thing made it hard to stay on task when said task was proving to be so painfully uneventful.
While her gaze trailed over the intricacies of the hangar, Starfall’s attention was drawn by the yellow hand reaching into the air just in the periphery of her sight. She was a little rusty on what it meant, halting almost like a deer in headlights at the sight of it as she tried to recall the signal’s meaning. Stop. That was it! Starfall’s frame returned to a more relaxed posture, as she turned her full attention over in Sunstreaker’s direction with a nod.
The other femme could report their progress well enough without Star herself chirping in, and so she returned to idly trailing her gaze across the interior. Though she now maintained a sharper vigil over Sunstreaker herself, in case some hidden ne'er-do-well struck from the shadows while her hand was at her commlink.
With a minute shrug of her shoulders, Petrichor flicked on her diffused lights, providing illumination in a much wider swath in front of and around herself. If they needed to pierce the darkness further ahead of them, she’d switch to her driving lights, but for now, the diffused got the job done.
“No, I don’t imagine they do." Seeing as how they don't seem to take much of anything lightly other than taking sparks.
She frowned, glancing around and decided she may as well make herself useful and poke around. Quietly, Petra began investigating crates and the immediate area, but not wandering too far from Prowl. The more time they spent in the darkened warehouse, the more she was convinced no one but them were there, and it was…concerning. She was tempted to state as much, but she doubted Prowl hadn’t already come to the same conclusion. Besides, if he wanted her opinion, he’d ask for it. Probably. At least she was keeping her cool and wasn’t babbling every little thought that zipped through her processor.
An irritated growl caught her attention and she looked up from where she had been lightly picking at a seam in the floor searching for any potential hidden panels that may open up into a hidden storage space or room. Unlikely, but one could never be too sure.
“Not particularly, no. Why? Is it encrypted?”
Before he could respond though, Sunstreaker’s voice came in over their comms channel, confirming what Petrichor was already suspicious of: the place was empty. What was going on?
“No, it’s empty. No recent footage that isn’t a day old or more.”
Prowl could feel his energon pressure rising in irritation. Something was definitely wrong here, and as Sunstreaker came back on the comm telling him that the place was empty with no sign of a struggle, some of his worst fears began to rush to the forefront of his processor.
::Copy. Rally outside.::
As he said it Prowl powered down the computer system, making a note to get someone with better computer skills once they got back to base. In the meantime, if no one was going to be here at the base it was best if this place remained as covert as possible. Once he was satisfied the system had fully powered down, he turned and stalked outside, motioning for Petrichor to join him.
“Who were Windshield’s closest associates, other than Patch?”
He addressed the question to Petrichor, though as he asked it he turned on his headlights and started scanning the ground around the front of the hanger. The recent arrival of his team would complicate things, but it shouldn’t be too hard to determine whose pedprints were whose in the desert once he double checked everything.
(Permission to post ahead of Sunstreaker from Kavac)
No footage older than a day? That…that was weird. Most security systems kept their data files for at least a month if not a year, Petra was pretty sure. Someone had cleared the system recently then, but who? Had it been Windshield or someone else? Things definitely seemed to be veering into the territory of foul-play.
Nervously, Petrichor adjusted the grip on her rifle and fell into step behind Prowl as he stalked back outside to regroup. Only, he didn’t wait for Star or Sunny. Instead, he seemed to begin searching the ground. Looking for traces of others who had been there before they had arrived, perhaps? That would make sense. Angling herself, Petra did her best to assist by letting her additional lighting illuminate the surrounding sand and dirt around him. Night had officially fallen on the desert while they had been inside and the darkness was all encompassing aside from the watery light of the stars and a frail sliver of a crescent moon.
While he searched, Prowl posed a question. Windshield’s associates? She had no idea. Obviously Patch, but who else? Thinking back, Petrichor didn’t think she’d even actually met the ex-con, much less spoke to him. Bumblebee had mentioned him on the outing she had accidentally bashed her own faceplate in, but wasn’t entirely sure if he had had much to do with the other mech either.
“I-I’m not sure. I never interacted directly with Windshield. I think Bumblebee might have, but I can’t confirm.”
She bit back an apology at not being able to provide more information. It was irrelevant to the topic; useless information; unprofessional. But it was still hard not to say it. She wanted to be helpful, and aside from being an overpowered flashlight, she didn't feel terribly helpful in this situation.
The information from Petrichor was met with a noncommittal “hrm” as Prowl continued to stare at the ground. There was a risk using his headlights like this in the desert at night, they could be seen for miles around and might lead someone to start asking questions or inspire them to investigate what is going on over here. But time was of the essence, even though he suspected that the ideal outcome would not be forthcoming.
Too much time had passed before they had decided to scramble this QRF.
No matter how this ended, things were going to change once he got back to Omega.
There was a set of tracks leading away from the hanger, two sets. None of them matched the tracks that Prowl saw from his team’s approach. That meant that they had to belong to both Windshield and Patch...unless they belonged to a set of unidentified Decepticons.
They might not be in time, but they could get some answers that might prevent the next tragedy.
“Everyone, on me.” he ordered as his servo folded out into its blaster mode again and he took off down the tracks of the prints.
Post by Sunstreaker on Sept 18, 2023 17:37:11 GMT -5
Almost as much as she yearned for a door to breach, Sunny halfheartedly wanted the place to be haunted. She just wanted to be minding her business trudging through the dark, abandoned, mysterious dwelling only to suddenly have the exhaust scared out of her. She couldn't shoot a ghost, but it would've made for a more straightforward explanation as to what had happened here, more so than their current working theory. Earth's haunted. Perfect. Would've made for a much more interesting AAR read, too.
Hearing the calm, yet just barely abrasive voice of her immediate superior cut through the dead silence, Sunstreaker stopped and turned on her heel. As far as she could tell, there wasn't much more to glean from staring at the floor. The fact that she had found nothing was about the most noteworthy thing she'd contributed to the investigation thus far.
She calmly retreated back towards Prowl and Petra's position, spotting the two of them bathed in the desert moonlight. With less fuss than one might expect from her, Sunny fell in quietly and orderly behind Prowl, her optics attempting to trace the trail of his own. She doubted they were just going to call it quits here, despite the lack of anything worthwhile. Maybe they had just found Patch and Windshield snickering to each other in a bush nearby, and this whole thing had turned out to be one hell of a prank.
If only.
Spotting the blaster snapping into position at the end of Prowl's arm did her a brief bepuzzlement, as she didn't know whether to chalk it up to Prowl having seen something, or to his paranoia. Some would call it vigilance, but Sunny knew that some folk were lying. She followed suit regardless, unfolding the blaster built into her right arm.
"So. Theories?" There had to be something floating around in Prowl's dome about how they'd lost two Autobots with no warning. Right?
Petrichor looked towards Sunstreaker and gave a nod in greeting as she joined them outside the hangar, but otherwise kept quiet. Instead, she watched the previous law enforcer and criminal investigator fall into what looked like familiar territory together. It would have been fascinating to watch if she didn’t have a sinking feeling in the bottom of her tanks souring everything. Was crime scene investigation – would this be called a crime scene if it was unclear if a crime had actually been committed? – similar to tracking animals or searching for ore veins? Clearly it required making observations, but Petra had no clue as to what specifically one was supposed to look for. Or maybe the things that one didn’t see at a “crime scene” were more significant? And then to make deductions from those observations? That had to be something that came with practice and experience, she was sure.
I guess it’s not so different from other jobs…just different context? I still don’t know what we’re-
“What’s that?”
Something shiny in had caught her lights and glinted briefly in the darkness. Brows furrowing, Petra turned and tried to catch the thing in her lights again. She switched to her high beams. Whatever it was flashed and she brought her rifle up to get a closer look through the scope. It was the weird head-shaped rock again.
Wait. No. That’s not…Oh Primus, I think I’m gonna be sick.
“S-sir?”
Petrichor had seen some pretty gruesome things in her life at this point, but seeing something like an eviscerated, severed helm…well, one never got used to something like that. At least, she hoped it was something she never got used to. Shakily, she lowered her rifle and pointed towards the lonely head for the others, swallowing down burning, caustic fuel in a desperate hope to keep it from making a reappearance on the sandy desert floor.
How had she overlooked it? Twice! The more she stood and stared in barely contained mortification towards the horrid sight, the more she began to pick out other shapes that glittered under the light of her high beams. It didn’t take a forensic expert to deduce what they probably were.
Last Edit: Nov 26, 2023 19:53:19 GMT -5 by Petrichor
Well going off the information they had, Prowl was willing to bet either MECH or the Decepticons had somehow identified where Windshield was living and either captured or killed the two of them with such speed that they weren’t able to get off a distress call. Or killed one of them. Despite using Windshield as an asset, he had never fully trusted the former Decepticon. Good intentions or no, a traitor is always a traitor, and there’s a good chance that if they betrayed their first cause they can betray their second cause too.
But so far all Prowl had was his reasonable suspicions...so he didn’t say anything to Sunstreaker’s question. Instead he kept moving, following the tracks with his chest mounted headlights switched on and sweeping the front with his blaster.
It was Petrichor that found the first clue that death must have occurred, and Prowl swung his headlights over to Petrichor’s sector. He didn’t see it at first either, but when he did his mouth pressed into a thin line as he marched over, giving a quick sweep of the area. Sure enough, it was a decapitated head. A mutilated, decapitated head at that.
Just like the Dead End all over again...
And just like that, Prowl’s investigator training took over.
“This is an active crime scene now. Fan out and secure the scene in a thirty meter radius from this position, keeping an eye out for anything of note. And for Primus sake watch where you step.”