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.
Post by Nathan Walker on Jan 29, 2023 22:45:37 GMT -5
Well...fuck...
Just had to try and say something nice...only to put his foot in his mouth big time.
Nathan just listened patiently, the nearly empty coke bottle just sitting in his hand as he listened to Butch vent about her father. He had assumed the best...but honestly he wasn’t too surprised to hear about her father. While Nathan did like to think about the nobility of his profession and those who chose to do it, he had to admit that not everyone in it was perfect or noble. He’d met some disreputable people in the service before.
Butch’s dad though...he could sympathize with wanting to find oneself. But seemed pretty selfish of him to do it when he did.
The thought caused Nathan to feel inwardly guilty at times. He too had joined to find himself over the objections of his parents, but since he was over eighteen there was nothing they could do about it. Mom had gotten over it...but Dad...
“I’m sorry, Butch.”
Nathan stared at the dark liquid in the bottle before knocking the rest of it back, then placed the empty bottle back into the cardboard holder and drew out another one, popping the top on it before letting out a sigh.
Post by Cassandra Cassidy on Jan 30, 2023 21:18:17 GMT -5
"Don't be," Butch told him. "You were trying to do me a kindness."
She sat quiet again, after that. The mesa continued to be empty. The echoes of faraway cars and dusty desert winds continued to reverberate in the hollow landscape. The sun dipped lower in the sky, and the heat of the day was giving away to the cooler touch of the evening. Somewhere, a rattlesnake was unfurling off its sunning spot, slithering back into a desolate hole. The world went on around them, in its small and unseen ways.
"You ever worry about dying on the job, especially with the alien robot angle?" Butch said suddenly. "Is it something at the back of your mind, or...?"
She took a swig and knocked back the rest of her own drink, reaching for a second bottle as well. A low rumble in her stomach reminded her of how little she'd had in the past day or so. That, or the carbonation was getting to her after drinking too fast.
"I mean, you could have someone swoop down on you - or something - at any moment...."
Post by Nathan Walker on Feb 5, 2023 18:57:51 GMT -5
Nathan was quiet for a moment as he pondered Butch’s question, taking a sip of his drink to buy himself a few more seconds before he spoke.
“Yes and no.”
He took another swig before answering, thinking back to when he had a conversation like this last. It was just before he left on his first combat deployment, with his grandfather. He’d asked the former sniper and police officer a similar question. So he decided to answer Butch’s in a similar style to how his grandfather had answered his.
“In my line of work, you learn really early on that every time you go out there is always a chance you aren’t going to come back.” He began as he spun the bottle of coke around in his hands. “So yeah, it’s always there in the back of my mind. But despite that fear I have, I still have a job to do. A job I chose to do and worked hard to be able to do. So I work through that fear, recognizing it exists but not letting it control me.” he replied before cracking a grin and looking back towards her. “The robots just make it more interesting if I’m being honest.”
He took another drink before shaking his head in amusement. Yeah, the robots certainly added a new angle. But when you got down to it, it wasn’t necessarily anything Nathan hadn’t seen before.
Last Edit: Feb 12, 2023 22:10:19 GMT -5 by Nathan Walker
Post by Cassandra Cassidy on Feb 6, 2023 20:39:59 GMT -5
"Mm."
She nodded along, and then looked away. Silence fell upon the two once more, the cleaner rolling her Coke bottle between her hands. This quiet lingered longer than the other stretches, the sun slipping down a tad in the sky. A huge truck rumbled by in the distance, and Butch watched as it passed, head tracking with its movement.
"I've asked you a lot of questions, I think," Butch said. She took another drink of her Coke, then burped a little and covered her mouth. "Is there anything you want to ask me? I half-expect you to be up here, now that I think about it, because you're covering any bases Fowler might've missed in interrogation. It must seem strange, having met me once before and then, coincidentally, I turn up here."
She glanced at him sideways. Her look was careful, her tone measured. "Doesn't help I have a record, does it? Nothing violent I haven't talked about, I assure you. I'm no hard-line criminal."
Post by Nathan Walker on Feb 12, 2023 22:24:49 GMT -5
“Actually, I came by because I figured you needed a friend to talk to.” Nathan replied simply before taking another sip of cola.
Yeah her record had popped when they were running a background check on her. But it honestly wasn’t the worst thing Nathan had ever seen. And yes Nathan was a bit suspicious about having met Butch before in the wilderness and then suddenly see her pop up here. But a decade of combat experience taught Nathan that sometimes things are just simply a coincidence, and there was nothing to be gained by trying to make sense of it. Sometimes things just happened, and you had to acknowledge it and deal with it while moving on with your life. Those who got hung up on it tended to spiral into a self-destructive spiral.
“I’ll admit the record had us perk up a bit. But if we had to turn away everyone who had a criminal record we’d have to turn away a lot of people.” Nathan replied as he looked back at her before chuckling. “There was this woman in my old unit, we called her Gator. Had quite the rap sheet, spent three years in juvie before enlisting. One of the best damn communication specialists I’ve ever seen, and one of the few people I’d trust with watching my back.”
There’d been a few times where she’d literally saved his life with her skills too. That time in Urzikstan really stood out, her and Brooks had saved everyone’s lives.
“Still, I’m not going to lie to you. We’re going to be watching you like a hawk. Just a fact of life now.” he shrugged before taking another sip.
Last Edit: Feb 21, 2023 19:19:34 GMT -5 by Nathan Walker
Post by Cassandra Cassidy on Feb 13, 2023 22:24:53 GMT -5
Like a hawk. Great, Butch thought. "Does this mean I should expect the Men In Black at my door at some point, a flash, and remembering nothing?" the cleaner snarked. She took a long swig of her drink, and her stomach grumbled again. The first chance she had, she was going to see if the base had Hot Pockets she could nuke. That, or if they'd let her go home and raid the freezer for whatever she could find.
More silence passed between them. It was a slightly-more comfortable silence now, and one Butch appreciated. She wasn't much of a talker by nature, and it was surprising how Nathan got her to open up at all. Perhaps it was the relaxed aura he had about him - a professional calmness that radiated in every word and step. There was a safety in that, an assuredness that things could go on as normal despite the revelations she'd had. Though she wouldn't go so far as to call him a friend, his presence was grounding, and appreciated as a result.
The silence as broken again as Butch asked, "What was your unit like? Are they here now?"
Post by Nathan Walker on Feb 19, 2023 23:50:06 GMT -5
“Not exactly.” Nathan replied before taking another sip. “We’ll just be keeping an extra close set of eyes on you compared to the rest of the population. I’m sure they did it to me and the lieutenant when they brought us here, so it shouldn’t be too much of an issue. Just don’t go making any visits to the off limits places...” he chuckled.
Trust but verify. Something Nathan had learned both the easy way and the hard way in life.
He enjoyed the silence until Butch broke it again, asking about his former unit. Nathan took another sip from his coke bottle as he mulled over the question. Many of them were still active, off doing who knows what kind of classified missions. But he could tell her the basics, using only callsigns.
“No, I’m the only one from my team that wound up here.” He began. NEST was very particular about who they recruited when they could. Sometimes they brought in teams whole sale if the whole group had been exposed, but mostly they picked and chose who they thought would be best in their organization. It flattered Nathan in some respects, being chosen to bear this secret.
“Some of them have retired, but most of them are back with my old command.” He continued. His former team leader Captain Jonathan Terrill as well as Sergeants Robert Miller and Olivia Holmes had both retired for various reasons, Terrill being advanced age, Miller a cancer diagnosis that was due to kill him any day now, and Holmes because she got pregnant and decided that she wanted to be there more for her family. Everyone else...Sledge, Gator, Stitch, Preacher, Frost, Block, Brooks and Roach...they were still at it apparently, fighting the good fight. Last he heard Frost had been promoted to team leader with Brooks promoted to be second in command...
“As for what they’re like...” Nathan paused, a smile coming to his face as a flood of memories overtook him.
“...it was like a family. We fought with and alongside each other. We celebrated each other’s victories and cried together during our defeats. We moved in sync, the kind of sync that comes from years of training together. I always knew who exactly was behind me based on how they walked, breathed, and how their equipment sounded.”
Post by Cassandra Cassidy on Feb 20, 2023 14:32:18 GMT -5
Butch watched him talk as if she might observe a bird in a tree. She took note of how he took time to answer the question, and the smile on his face. There was much warmth in his words, and Butch recognized that kind of synchronization. It was like when she ran with packs of other kids in her youth, breaking into places they shouldn't have. Every one of them had their individual footsteps, their own way of breathing.... Only, it wasn't as developed as Nathan described. It was more she picked up on their habits and their ways of doing quicker than others.
"You must miss them," Butch commented. "Are you still in touch?"
Another sip of coke was taken. Butch mulled a little on Nathan's words as she rolled the bottle between her hands again. Now that she thought about it harder...no, she'd only known the surface of people. She couldn't remember the last time she'd connected as deeply with someone as Nathan did with his team. The closest people she'd been to were her parents. Not her exes - and there were more of those than she'd like to admit - nor her workmates had left something so deep behind.
Post by Nathan Walker on Feb 26, 2023 22:37:38 GMT -5
“Yeah, we talk occasionally.” Nathan replied as he finished off his second bottle of coke and replaced it in the carrier, then grabbed his third and what would be his final bottle.
The discussions had gotten more frequent when Bob Miller realized that his time was coming pretty near, about four months ago. Apparently Bob was insisting that instead of relying on the standard issue Army Honor Guard, he wanted his teammates to be the ones to carry him to his place of final rest. So those who had been asked to be the pallbearers were busy coordinating and making sure that they were all up on training for the ceremony. It still surprised Nathan how Bob had managed to get that request approved...though if he had to wager it was probably Carol who had done a lot of the heavy lifting...
He let out a slight chuckle combined with a sigh before cracking the top off and taking a sip. Carol always did have a way of moving heaven and earth to get what someone else needed.
“Eventually the good times have to end though. We couldn’t stay a team forever.” He said looking over at Butch with a bit of a sad smile on his face. “We all had our paths that we had to walk. Mine just wound up letting me in on arguably the biggest secret our government has.” He chuckled again.
Post by Cassandra Cassidy on Feb 28, 2023 18:34:01 GMT -5
"At least you can talk to each other still," Butch said. "They're never far away with an email or a phone call in these times. Right?"
Three bottles already? Butch had only come close to finishing her first one. The third Coke had an eyebrow raise from her, but she said nothing about it. Instead, she went back to staring at the horizon, sipping on what drink she had left.
The silence was different this time, however. As the minutes went on, Butch began to fidget. She frowned, rolling her Coke between her hands again, tapping one heel against the side of the mesa. She looked at Nathan, then looked away with a pensive expression. Butch opened her mouth to say something, but stopped and stared down at the far-off ground. Her bad hand rose to be stared at, fingers flexing stiffly. Then Butch's legs pulled back from the side, folding up beneath her as she sat cross-legged.
"Do you think the Autobots need a janitor?" she blurted out. "I mean - I wouldn't be surprised if they have their own...."
Post by Nathan Walker on Mar 12, 2023 21:28:56 GMT -5
“Yeah, at least we have that.” Nathan agreed with a contemplative nod of the head.
They had been through hell and back together more times than he could count, more so than his squad before he’d joined Special Forces. Sure he and the airborne guys had seen plenty of combat, but usually there were more than just the squad there as they tended to operate as a platoon or a company. Not like on Hunter team. There it was just the twelve of them against whatever odds happened to be arraigned against them. Sure they had support on occasion from other units and it certainly helped, but at the end of the day they could make do with sharp sticks.
Butch’s question caught him off guard slightly, causing him to look over at her with a curious expression as he tried to figure out why she would ask such a question.
“I...I don’t know,” He admitted, before taking another sip of cola. “I mean the place always looks pretty tidy...but it is a war camp after all...” he paused, looking at her with a raised eyebrow.
Post by Cassandra Cassidy on Mar 18, 2023 18:24:04 GMT -5
"Because I can't enlist," Butch said, sounding exasperated. She reached for the fingerless glove of her left hand and, with a swift yank, revealed it. Stiff fingers sat half-clawed; a trident-shaped scar, rough and raised, marred the top. "My hand's too messed up. I broke it when I was a kid. I did something stupid, wrecked some of the nerves."
She sighed, running the bad hand roughly through her orange hair. "It's not about 'working for them', it's...it's complicated. I mean, they practically saved my life, and they're refugees, and there are Decepticons out there wanting to screw things over, and...."
Butch rubbed at her face. Her left fingers, with some effort, pressed into the skin around her nose. "Christ almighty," she muttered, "I could really use a smoke right now." Dropping her arm, she looked out into the horizon, squinting.
"It's a lot of things, okay?" she said after a few moments. "I just...I can always ask, I guess? Doesn't matter if they say yes or no...this is a war camp, like you said. If they don't want me here, they don't want me here. I just thought it'd be worth it, offering to help."
Post by Nathan Walker on Mar 19, 2023 20:49:52 GMT -5
Nathan was no stranger to injuries. He had his own that he carried with him that maybe could have gotten him a medical discharge, and he’d seen plenty that had netted people discharges. So he didn’t say anything as Butch revealed her hand to him, instead he merely stared at it for a moment before looking away and taking another sip of cola.
“So you think you owe them something?”
Well..she had been through a traumatic experience, and was saved by the Autobots. At her comment to smoke he shrugged.
“Go ahead and light up if you want. Just don’t do it in the base.” he said simply as he watched her. Being underground he was concerned about the air quality inside the base. Not that Butch could put much of a dent in it just by herself, but if something happened it was best to play it safe. Plus he didn’t want the kids to get any ideas, same reason why he made sure to do all his drinking off base.
“They want you here, trust me. Optimus likes to keep an eye on everyone who got caught in the crossfire.” Nathan muttered before taking another sip. He liked the kids well enough...but deep down part of him wondered if they were doing the kids a disservice keeping them in the line of fire like this.
Post by Cassandra Cassidy on Mar 19, 2023 21:11:23 GMT -5
"That's what I thought," Butch said, sniffing. She downed the last dregs of her cola, reaching for another bottle and putting the empty back. Her hand was still revealed to the world as she snapped the cap off with her good one. She went back to staring out into the distance again, brow furrowed and lips a thin line. Around them a desert wind danced, stirring Nathan's dark hair and lifting the slight curl of Butch's.
There was an anxious energy to the next stretch of silence. Butch continued to fidget, picking at the skin around one nail for a moment. She looked at Nathan, then reached into her pockets for her lighter. She made a tense sigh, finding that - once again - her lighter was nowhere to be found. It was futile, her knowing already that the lighter was missing, but searching for it gave her something to do. This quiet, this waiting, this...everything - it was bothersome now.
So, she started talking again.
"I mean, do I owe them? No...maybe. I guess. It's just...they didn't have to reveal themselves to me like this. They didn't have to take me into their base, reveal their secrets like this. But they did."
She looked at Nathan. "What do you say to someone who's taken such a risk for you? What do you do?"
Post by Nathan Walker on Mar 26, 2023 20:14:44 GMT -5
Seeing her search around for a lighter, Nathan silently reached into the coin pocket of his jeans and extracted a worn, patinated zippo lighter which he held out towards Butch. In worn lettering across the face of the lid was the name 'Sgt. Marcus A. Crane' and an eight digit number below that. On the bottom half of the lighter was an octofoil in a circle with the phrase 'Old Reliables' underneath on a scroll in the same worn block lettering.
“Here.”
She did have a point. They could have left her on the side of the road after the incident. Hell, it might have been better for her if Kup had just left her on the side of the road and hadn’t picked her up in the first place. Well...if wishes were horses Nathan would have been rich. What had happened had happened, and there was no use changing it.
“Alright, you made your point.” He replied as he took another sip of cola, sensing that trying to fight her on this was going to be a losing battle because it was the same argument that he would have made if he was in her place.
“I can’t promise you that everyone here will like you though. Most of them are pretty okay with humans but some are a bit prejudiced.”
Last Edit: Jun 11, 2023 16:51:48 GMT -5 by Nathan Walker