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.
Orion stood up from the table, sweeping a hand over the screen and closing all the files there, the files blinking from the screen, the wireless channel from his own CPU cut and he thumbed his wrist, a data chip the size and width of his thumb clicking free from a subspace slot in his wrist. He moved to Megatronus’ side of the table. His face, his EM field, every frequency off his frame even tempered and somewhat exasperated. This was not the first time, not even the second time the subject of Orion learning to defend himself had been brought up. He knew, for safety sake, it made sense. That didn't mean he wanted to learn to fight, however, though he knew his refusal was, however indirectly, an insult to his friend.
“Cybertron does not need two gladiators.” He handed Megatronus the chip, voice level. “They have you.” The glow of various still open holo-screens around them threw light in blues and screens from the walls and ceilings, the soft hum of lights and idle hydraulics in the air. He shifted his weight slightly, the configuration of his frequencies rearranging suddenly, taking on a more open long-wave pitch – resigned but agreeable. “That said,” he continued, exo-plating sliding slightly, taking on a less relaxed tension, “if it would ease your fears…”
Megatronus made an open-handed gesture, the memory chip already vanished. Kaon habits that would likely never vanish, no matter how far from the pits and drop-caste masses he ascended. "That is all I'm asking."
The gladiator rose with a smoothness more becoming of his size from the pull of the healing welds in his side, stepping around the terminal desk towards Orion. Their optics held, easy and assured. Right now, Orion's turf and Megatronus's terms. "Any harm that befell you as a result of what we're doing, however indirectly, would be my responsibility. If I cannot protect you myself, then I would at least have you moderately capable of defending yourself."
His optics dropped down the length of the archivest's frame, brows twitching forwards in a quick but critical assessment as he stepped to also review Orion from the side. He held out a hand and took the mech's wrist when it was offered him, palming the surface armour with quick scans but focussing more intently on his elbow and shoulder joints.
"Servo to servo."
Megatronus grinned at the conclusion, meeting Orion's optics again with pleased anticipation, and some small note of pride. "I think you'd be good at servo to servo."
The blow came from the edge of his peripheral, a flicker of darkness crossing into his field of awareness like so many times – now countless times, hundreds of thousands – Orion reacted. He defected the blow as it came over his shoulder, aiming under his right audial, forearm striking up and throwing the swing over the shoulder guard past his head. Then he counter attacked. The exchange didn’t last long, a series of rapdic body strikes followed by a massive, plate-shattering thrown elbow to the other mech’s face. There was, of course, a time when he’d been unwilling to throw such a blow. Experience with his opponent, however, had trained that out of him because deep beneath his reservations was the knowledge that this opponent… this opponent could take it.
The crack of metal to metal is familiar now, the rev of kicked-up engines and hydraulics in the quiet. The sub-basement here hasn’t been used in over a century, the backup files here having long since been digitized and it’s here that the two of them can find the privacy to do violence to each other uninterrupted. Another strike. This to his side seam, then his shoulder, his head. Orion blows with his elbow, braced back against the shoulder blow, ducks, then deflects the headshot slamming the heel of his hand into the other mech’s throat, crackling his vocoder with static before the archivist drove a straight kick into his midsection, sending Megatronus sliding backward, half doubled.
‘More legwork,’ he was always saying.
There was a break then, Orion having broken the exchange by driving of his friend’s attack and for a moment the hum off his own engines was all he could hear. It was a moment before he relaxed his defensive stance, tilting his head slightly.
“You are humoring me,” he said dryly.
Last Edit: May 23, 2012 10:34:38 GMT -5 by Deleted
Megatronus didn't immediately straighten from that last powerful kick, one hand bracing over the area still sore and bruised from the previous night's activities. Denta gritted and optics shuttered, he inhaled the pain of the strike as safe and familiar, cycling some of the tension back out as he finally, slowly straightened.
That Orion thought he was faking it for his sake was faintly amusing.
He checked his vocaliser had compensated for the violent compression before replying, "I wouldn't. Not when it's potentially your life that is at stake. Ego's don't count for much when you're greyed out."
The gladiator rolled his helm and one shoulder, loosening up the linkages from that last bout, and stepped through the scratches on the floor from where his pedes had gripped against the slide back. "That was actually good. Not too high, going for thinner plates over secondary systems rather than the more tempting target of my spark."
No sense in beating on thick plates with a blunt object. Puncture, tear, pierce and shoot at the chassis, but punch and kick for the seams and thinner armor. Wear them down towards the killing blow.
Megatronus tapped the curled tips of his fingers into Orion's own abdominal plating, just above his pelvis. "Your high centre of balance, long legs and relatively small pedes are a liability. If you keep on leg work, make them as much of combat as your fists and any weapon you carry, then you'll close opportunities -" His hand closed over the archivist's right hip, tugging once, sharply, "- for hook and twist moves that'll ground you."
Orion moved easily enough with the sudden pull. Megatronus seemed to be ever trying to push him off his balance, which he could not often do as – if nothing else – Orion had excellent balance. The gladiator kept saying that balance was everything when it came to fighting, a natural kinesthetic mass-instinct for movement that could not be taught he said. Orion tended to think his friend might be over-estimating him but went amicably enough with the sudden tug. Blue optics spun slightly, refocusing on the other mechanoid’s facial features – he hadn’t missed the very real dissipation of pain through his friend’s EMF, how it locked through his assemblages, and jarred the usual hydraulic grace he was used to.
“If you are injured,” said Orion, disapproval in his tone, “then you should not be training me, you should be recovering. You assured me that your injuries from the last match were repaired.”
Though that would hardly be the first time that Megatronus’ idea of ‘fully recovered’ did not align with Orion’s. The archivist took a step back from Megatronus’ studious grip on him, expression gone flat with vexation because the very last thing he really wanted, despite his training to the contrary, was to hurt someone. His bravery with Megatronus was rooted in assurances that his friend was one of the toughest living Cybertronians the regions and a data clerk was not going to do him real harm. That said… Orion liked to think he was a good even if reluctant student.
“Maybe we should work on throws and holds instead of hitting each other?” His tone was still dry, but leading. Working on grappling meant mostly going examples of grips and how to break them, explaining how. Breaking grips almost always came down to not panicking when put in one so going slow through them was necessary step and perhaps preferable for today’s lesson… provided Megatronus’ pride didn’t get in the way.
The only lies Megatronus told the archivist were lies of omission, because there were some things that Orion did not need to know. He was also quite certain as to how Orion would react to the sudden knowledge of certain events - Nos, a lifetime away but a spark-fracture close; Syndicate directed work that sometimes left injuries that the archivist's optic caught; black tasks in Kaon, steadily becoming more common, more necessary...
None of these were factors Megatronus wished to introduce to their dynamic. Not out of shame: just a practical avoidance of unneeded and unwelcomed concern.
"The last match was mostly mesh-wounds," the gladiator replies frankly, nudging a toe-tip into Orion's left pede to perfect his stance. A useable relaxed bearing was important, and the archivist was almost falling into it instinctually now. "But if it would appease you to barely kink my lines, then we can revisit."
Crouching, Megatronus took a slim leg by the ankle and rose with it, trusting Orion's naturally excellent balance and the proper stance to tilt his hip, angle his thigh and remain stably upright. He trapped the pede against his sideseam with his arm, then gripped the underside of Orion's leg plating with the same hand, leaving his right at his side.
"Alright, Pax. You've kicked, I've turned out of the bulk of the strike and caught your leg. Get it back."
Unspoken, not automatic, was to strike again as part of breaking the hold. Megatronus was too strong and solid to merely jerk and twist away from.
Last Edit: May 27, 2012 10:12:23 GMT -5 by Deleted
Orion hesitated slightly. It was clear to him that what Megatronus wanted – what he was trying to get Orion to do right now – was to initiate a cross grab, for him to reach across, grab the other mech the back of his left shoulder and use the combined leverage of his trapped leg and Megatronus’ shoulder to power his opposite knee into his opponent’s ribstruts or, ideally, the side of his head. The torque from such a knee strike would be enough to stun a regular opponent, kill and unskilled opponent, or at least hazard an experience one, forcing the other mech to either release his leg or accept a pummeling.
The archivist knew he was expected to execute the defense, and with the full violent forcer necessary to break the grip… but like usual his spark spun against the trajectory of that instinct that Megatronus was attempting to cultivate in him. Orion, instead, assumed his most intellectual-in-the-middle-of-an-explanation tone and, to Megatronus’ visible exasperation, explained what he was supposed to do.
“If an opponent managed to catch and lock my leg, and provided he did not take me to the floor immediately, or that I can beat him to the counter before he does so, I would take advantage of the leverage he is creating by pinning me inside his guard, and occupying one of his arms in the doing.” Orion, again with the detachment of explanation, reached his left arm across Megatron’s chest to grip at the slope of alloy where shoulder met neck column, his other hand gripping the back of the gladiator’s bicep. “Grip here,” he said. “Then pull up, while simultaneously…” He boosted himself slightly, pulling himself up on his friend’s shoulder, his other knee making an aborted motion of driving up into the mech’s head and shoulder region. “…striking with the knee,“ he finished.
He dropped his other leg back to the floor, though not releasing his grip for balance on the other mech. Megatronus’ stare was perfectly flat. Orion ignored it expertly.
“That is the defense I would use,” he concluded.
Last Edit: May 27, 2012 17:10:30 GMT -5 by Deleted
Orion was playing the 'innocent and harmless databot' card, and Megatronus met it with the same muted, internalised exasperation as every other time. Sometimes, though, when the archivist was being particularly dense, he did want to throttle the mech's fuel lines until he offlined. Just to make a point.
Presently, however, Megatronus shuttered his optics to lubricate the fractal lenses before smiling faintly. He flexed his long fingers around Orion's leg, laying his other hand over the knee to fully encompass it and taking a solid hold. "Then thank you, Orion, for giving me this limb. If you will not take it back, then it's mine."
The narrowing of crimson optics was a deliberate warning of the move a nanoklik before it happened: Megatronus went to step back, geared to yank and twist the limb into dislocation and, with another good few wrenches, free entirely.
And because Orion knew Megatronus - knew him well, knew him well enough never to underestimate the willingness in his friend to do violence even to him - he didn’t hesitate even the nano-kilk that it took Megtronus to make eye-contact with him. The archivist twisted, yanking the other mech’s shoulder down so hard, boosting himself up so violently his gripped leg was nearly wrenched free from its hold but not before the full titanic blow of his knee strike drove with hideous force into the side of Megatronus’s head. He felt the perfect arc of the strike like a mathematical line of motion from the yank down along the taut line of his back strut straight into the slam ofhis knee and the blow reverberated from the top of his knee joint though the full of his body and he knew that his friend was going down before the thought had fully formed.
He felt the strike, a kinesthetic hum flashing into mass-memory and he knew he’d never forget what that strike felt like for every other time he ever executed such a defense… and then he hit the floor, rolling free of Megatronus who’d released and shoved him free. The archivist tumbling back to his feet instinctively, taking the defensive stance again… before noting that the other mech seemed very content to remain on the mat.
“Megatronus?” When he didn't get a response, he moved hastily to his friend's side. He small flicker of irritation and a sharp pin-stab of dread. “Do not tell me I have injured you after all that -"
WHAM! Orion found himself looking up at the ceiling, his head ringing, flat out on his back while his gyro-stabilizers dizzily told him he'd been leg swept with enough force to dent the plating in his pedes. The archivist wondered, dryly, why exactly he was surprised.
Last Edit: May 27, 2012 17:35:13 GMT -5 by Deleted
Orion was beginning to realize how strong he was, and how naturally attuned to combat his systems were despite the repressed knowledge of his model's previous functions. When he was being as timid about using that strength as he had been moments ago, Megatronus still, occassionally, made the mistake of assuming he wouldn't fully follow through with everything he had when finally coaxed/goaded into action.
With his helm ringing, equilibrium sensors that had still been fragile from having a mid-range-sadistic pair of mechs digging around his erotic core for the better part of the previous night now temporarily but utterly skewed, and beneath a genuine swell of pride, the gladiator regretted that. Felt that, perhaps, the shoulder locks that Orion had been intending to gentle their training down to would have been the better move.
Still lying on his back following the sweep that had put his equilibrium and churning fuel tank onto another axis of spinning, Megatronus lifted one heavy pede and set it squarely on Orion's chassis beside him. A pathetic pin, but it would give him a warning and a klik if the mech suddenly had a change of personality matrix and got inspired to actually win.
"For all your natural talent, you can still be a soft-sparked idiot, Pax," he muttered dryly, bringing a hand to his faceplates to feel the impression of the dent and rub his optical covers. "But, you're getting better. Well done."
Last Edit: May 27, 2012 18:15:22 GMT -5 by Deleted
“Thank you,” said Orion, shoving the other mech’s foot off his chest with a clunk of metal. “Truly, brother.”
Megatronus had not even bothered to get up from his floored position after the counter-attack, seemingly intent on taking the break from their exercises but only after Orion too was floored. Or that was the best of the logic that the archivist could make out with his own helm reverbing with the vibrato of impact. He grimaced, pushing himself into a sitting position and rebooting his optical receptors until the fritz of static cleared from them and his systems informed him he’d recovered from the impact relatively unharmed despite the ache in his back strut trying to convince him otherwise.
He gave Megatronus a sidelong look. “And I am perfectly content with the stat of my spark, but your opinion is appreciated and noted. Did Soundwave tell you about the task force Zeta has assigned to shutting down our signal? Failing of course, against Soundwave’s resources and know how, but nevertheless the most serious attempt yet.” He supposed if they weren’t going to be hitting each other, they could at least get something done here. "His supporters have taken to calling us a terrorist transmission again."
Last Edit: May 27, 2012 18:15:22 GMT -5 by Deleted
A beat passed in silence apart from the hum of their cooling fans, the high frequency sound of the archives towering over their helms so normalised now that it had become its own baseline. Then Megatronus made a short, openly exasperated sound and palmed his faceplates completely.
"I should have hit you harder. Maybe you'd stop thinking for a nanoklik."
Dropping his arm back out to the side, the gladiator refocussed his optics on the ceiling and thought about moving. When the ringing sound got louder, he decided that they could both use a short break from that last bout and stilled once more. In the arena he'd have rolled back up from worse than this, because his continued existance depended on it. Here, it would only have been pride, and that hadn't fully emerged from the subspace pocket he'd shoved it into when the Syndicate had dropped him a summons. So he stayed put, letting autorepair worry at the minor failures to get the room to stop spinning on a counter-axis to Cyberton.
Ultimately, he really didn't want to have discussion about political tactics at this exact klik. His tone conveyed as much, EM field lapping lazily at Orion's own. "And yes, Soundwave told me. I believe he's attempting to acclimatise me to the idea of having a live feed straight into my processor. I'm half convinced that mech doesn't recharge."
“I am more than half convinced,” said Orion, utterly sober, “that Soundwave would delete his own emotional sub-routines if that were an option he could take. Given time, he will stop using perfunctory inflection glyphs at all and simply become one with the Communication Grid.”
The subject of Soundwave (despite the mech being all together somewhat strange and unfathomable as the surface of the sun) was still an easier topic just now than the upheaval the public was enduring. As Megatronus began to more strongly verge from the gladiatorial arena and into the political, the more difficult it became to reconcile the two occupations – they both requiring so much of his time and his energy. To simply stay alive in the arena was a constant effort and discipline and to compound that with the bloody-minded fervor of a revolutionary’s ambition… Orion knew that his friend could only do so much. He was one mech.
And sometimes he needed quiet. This, here in the basements of Iacon’s forget relics and archives, was quiet. For all that Orion was involved in the movement, for all the chaos he himself had called to action through simply speaking into the collective audials of the people, his place in their joint effort at revolution was – in the end – his ability to be one calm fixed point in the chaos. When Megatronus the Revolutionary became too loud a persona to occupy even for the gladiator. Orion gazed up, the pulsing lattice work of blue data stream veined across the ceiling before reaching over to knock the back of his knuckles against his brother’s shoulder.
“Are we done with this break?” His tone was slightly impudent. “Or do you need a few more kilks?”
Megatronus flicked out one hand to crack his sharp knuckles into the smaller mech's hip, not with any real effort but far from gently. "Scragging impatient younglings..."
His field licked out irritation and exasperation over a baseline of semi-relaxed humour, a mixture of projected sentiment he wouldn't display anywhere else. Even amongst his closest allies in Kaon, mecha he'd known since entering the Arenas, he would be cautious to show any kind of easiness. There was an expectation of strength everywhere now, of inpenetrability and a kind of detachment from any sensibilities that did not comply with the image he'd built.
Orion, however, he'd never sought to cultivate the loyalty of. That seemed to have happened as naturally as the friendship that had bloomed out of hundreds of breems sat stiff and determined at consoles, research and campaign preparations gently broken up with light talk and clean energon. The work the gladiator did in the Records Halls was not enjoyable, only necessary and evermore vital to the cause. Orion, the quietly helpful archivist who'd become a friend, then a supporter and now a brother, was the one highlight out of his ventures into the Towers.
Feeling that the spinning might actually have stopped this time, Megatronus braced a fist into the floor and sat upright. His optics remained fixed on some middle-distance point, thumb lightly tapping his thigh armour twice before he finally spoke. "Soundwave is moving to become my patron. Buy me out of the Syndicate."
He would have liked to be more articulate but when the exceptional subject of the Syndicate came up it was simply that he lost the right to say very much. If there was anything that drew a dark, dark line under the nature of their different stations in Cybertron, it was the mention of the Syndicate – that dark and known, but oft ignored entity trading a function that was not strictly a true caste or utility among their species, catering to the personal… tastes of mechanoids in the position to ask for such a thing, and pay for such a thing. The Syndicate was a latent virus in the digital-mechanical world of Cybertronians, a dark snarl of interests and money threaded from the top down through their social structures and Megatronus… he’d been necessarily in its snare for eons.
It was a topic, one of the few, they simply did not discuss. For it to come up now… Orion sat forward, trying to catch Megatronus’ optic, but not expecting to.