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.
She broke her study of the map long enough to look up and make sure he could see the roll of her eyes. "Relax, Sides." The wee one in the stroller took his step behind her as a game, it seems, as a wide, mostly gummy grin stretched across her face. "She just thinks you're cute. And probably playing peek-a-boo." Catherine made a face herself, sticking her tongue out until the girl giggled and cooed.
After another quick glance over of the map, she lightly nudged his arm. Game on. "And yes, an arcade. Pretty damn big one looks like filled with screaming, distracted children, seizure enducing lights wrapped up in darkness. You'll be the last thing on anyone's mind in there. Figure it might be a bit more comfortable than out here." She winked over her shoulder at the baby, before smirking up at Sides. "What with your growing popularity among the young ladies and all. ...Wanna go?"
“I’ll relax when I’m not in danger of causing an interplanetary fucking crisis if I blink too hard,” said Sideswipe under his non-existent breath.
It was entirely possible he was over hyping the limits of his hardlight projection. He was actually just fine to transmit his avatar within three quarters of a mile provided there were not certain magnetic tomfoolery at play and he didn’t need to also do something else that required focus. Usually he could multi-task half a dozen through strings but maintaining a perfect hard-light avatar occupied almost the entirety of his focus. Just not his thing. Never his thing. He shot Cat a look to suggest exactly how little this was his thing before huffing dramatically, pulling his ‘hood up a bit more and sinking deeper into the shadow beneath the brim of his ball cap beneath the hood.
“Fine, arcade. Whatever you lot got, ain’t got nothin’ on a dive-tech Kaon holo-joint. Pure wired in those places, cuz.”
Last Edit: Jun 18, 2012 19:21:14 GMT -5 by Deleted
"Jus' try 'n keep an open mind, huh? And you might want to give that hood a rest, you look like you're getting ready to mug someone." Catherine shot him a look, brow arched, her smile serving as a playful nudge as she hurried them through the mall's crowd.
The arcade wasn't difficult to pick out, with the glowing signs and the tinted front-face windows, and the sound of jingling game machines thrumming even through the glass doors. Inside, it was about as cool as it was out on the harbor. Filled with kids between ten and twenty, but dark and loud, and not one person had glanced up at them once they entered. Smiling, she swung in slightly to be heard. "Better?"
Rows upon rows of games with everything from the classic to the newer generations. Stuffing her hands in her pockets, she paused towards one side of a row of games, peering up to gauge his face under the cap and hood.
Waiting in the snaking queue inside the post office, Cleaver was going through her monthly subscriptions and current receipts. There was a lot of additional stuff in her already over-stuffed post box, much of it at the request or recommendation of Steeljaw with regards to renovating Haven to be more electrically sound and human friendly.
Though the power lines for the base were to be stripped from Cybertronian parts, and thus carry far more current, not all of Cat's belongings could be adapted to run on it. A parallel grid was being slowly expanded for her use, primarily in the kitchen and recreational space. Cleaver liked to keep a stock of parts in storage for maintenance and expansion, so she'd ordered extra of everything. And buying in bulk saved money, which was a very human tactic.
::Sideswipe, gonna need to use your bootspace, if that's alright? Bit of a trek to get this stuff back to my alt.:: Barely a pause, and then she added, ::Is your holo still out? Is Cat with you?::[/i]
Not that she didn't trust Cat. It was Sides' and his petulant moods she would never underestimate getting himself and the human into trouble.
Sides arched his holo-form’s head back slightly at the stealthy proximity of Cat trying to look up under his holoform’s hood to gauge his opinion of the arcade. It was crowded and dark, the banging cluster-frag of noise, bells, gunshots, and voices, the bang of four dozen arcade theme songs and the general low roar of sentient creatures moving in close proximity. It was like an… extremely low tech… no not even a low tech version of holo-dives back on Cybertron it was like an echo of it, bust sidewise and small and everything the wrong shape, the wrong speed, everything 100% different except that the energy was the same. Everyone diving into fake worlds for the sake of it.
::Oh yeah sure just occupy my fraggin’ subspace with your subscription addicted junk pile and Martha Steward magazines or whatever. Great. Thanks. And, yes, I’m still out with Cat. My fifteen minutes ain’t up yet. She’s got another ten minutes before book outta here.::
Sideswipe's tone was entirely usual, and she was pleased to her that he was still out with his holo and Cat rather than sulking in the parking lot. ::Good to know. You two have fun, and don't do anything stupid.::
Cleaver had very little in the way of a sense of humour, quite anchored into a dry, practical and survivalist view of the universe and everything in it. When the slither she possessed did raise its helm, it was somewhat darkly. When Sideswipe had caught scent of her elaborate native persona and promptly thrown a dozen glitches at her 'mess', the medic had given him the task of cleaning it up in part as something to keep his processor off his Twin, and because seeing him snarling childishly and embellishing his grievances with four langauges when metaphors in Cybertronian didn't cover it was quite entertaining.
In the name of helpfully distracting Sideswipe from his sparktwin's ongoing statis, Cleaver had quietly begun indulging in the superfluousness that he'd (unfairly) been accusing her.
James, her human persona's pet cat, had spontaneously developed a a food sensitivity and now required specially doctored food imported from Germany. Part of her post this month was several bags of Science Plan cat food, with complimentary toys and treats due to the size of the order.
Shuffling forward a few steps in the queue, Cleaver inwardly debated whether James would like a six tiered cat tower with adjoining tunnels and scratching posts.
::Thanks for the storage space.::
Last Edit: Jun 19, 2012 17:23:39 GMT -5 by Deleted
Half of these she was sure didn't even come close to a holo-dive if it was anything like she was imagining, and the others she was pretty sure he'd already played at some point online chillin' out in the rec room, or at least games that were way too similar. So it couldn't just be any game (at least not if she was going to reach her goal), and preferably something that stood a fairly good chance of not having been played by him before. New and competitive.
She started walking, slowly, taking a bit of time to look this way and that, before stopping suddenly to the sound of pre-recorded cheering. '…That one might work.' A few steps away was a split platform with glowing arrows and blasting techno music, awaiting players. Not enough people to be uncomfortable, but enough to make showing off a little worth it, surely.
"Kick your ass in a round of DDR?" Cat tilted her head back, enough so that he could see the challenge on her face as plainly as he could hear it in her voice.
Sideswipe, though sensing a cat-related disturbance in the force, tilted his head and examined the giant colorful contraption with the same side-eye suspicion he might have regarded a new Kimia-commissioned super weapon. A Google search rendered forth the data that he was looking for, the nature of the rules and how to play and he immediately watched four Youtube videos simultaneously and smirked. Cat was clearly wearing her ‘Imma-kick-your-ass’ face and that warranted all his extensive competitive attention. When he and Sunstreaker were not betting on themselves and their continued existence in the gladiatorial rings, Kaon’s south-most holo-dives had always been good for a hustle.
“I ain’t playin’ yur goofy lookin’ game, cuz. Not until you show me how it works. Remember how ‘Jenga’ ended?” He moved over to the DDR machine, inspected the glowing arrows on the floor and reaching up to grab the support bar at the back of the Player Two platform. He frowned at it some more before looking up at her from beneath the brim of his cap beneath the hood. “You go first.”
"Well as long as you don't get pissed and decide to kick it through a wall, we should be fine." She stepped her way up to the player one space, already drawing a few eyes being the new competitor, and dug out a few coins from her pocket. "But if you insist, fine."
The machine came to life in a flurry of bright lights from top to bottom and a blast of tunes as the screen set itself up. "This ain't Jenga." She said, pressing and scrolling through selections on the screen, hmm'ing to herself as she decided on the level of play, and finally settling on a song. "It's just dancing." She grinned over her shoulder while the game booted up with an Are you ready!, strobes and sounds going through a different sequence to signal the start of the round. "All you gotta do is step on the arrows."
The next few seconds, she was on the beat. The song itself was some techno remix of a remix so loud she could feel it in her heart and feet, with a quick enough rhythm to be just enough of a challenge, but not impossible for a flow of turns and hip action. The score she earned… respectable. She could live with it.
'What time is it.' She spun to where she last saw a clock on the wall the second the song ended and her score flashed on the screen. Yeah. There was time before 15 was up, and before they needed to meet Cleaver. "See? Not hard, right?" Catherine grinned, taking in a breath to steady herself from the cardio and patting the support rail he was leaning on. "C'mon, your turn."
“Oh, gods, be still my beating spark,” drawled Sideswipe, his holo-form’s expression very clearly all kinds of displeased with this foolishness.
That said… there was something to be said for a very loud showy game based entirely on rhythm and movement. Sideswipe’s whole survival had been based on those two precepts his whole damn life. His holoform ducked under the handle bar at the back of the platform and climbed up on the platform, moving to stand with his feet apart ontop of the glowy neon arrows. The screen prompted him to join so spun up the Player Two menu, selected an avatar and it flashed rewardingly at him before spinning up “Waiting for Player One.” As he studied his life, his choice, his millions of years alive in the vast expanse of the universe he found himself wondering how the wild trajectory of his life had directed him to an alien arcade, having a dance off with a meat-based native.
“I must be really bored,” he said aloud. Then he glanced at Cat, eyes reflecting the flash of light off the screens, making two bright points of light in the dark of his face. “Versus mode. Pick whatever difficulty. I think I got it, Kit-Cat.”
"I think," She said, sounding half-distracted while tapping furiously on the keypad of her little pocket-comm. "That you're just really in the mood to groove!" She was hanging off the edge of the railing, her back to the display and grinning to herself about whatever secret she was sending to… whoever.
"Or!" Still typing on the keypad with a thumb, she scrolled through the avatar selection, only looking up when she'd made a selection. Smug smirk and all. "…Just really lookin' to get your butt kicked. Versus mode it is!"
Player One Ready! The screen split to display their platforms, the arrows flaring up beneath them as the first few opening beats signaled the start of the selected song. "Beats could use some more Moonie, though!" They were already a few steps in, while she pressed send on Cleo: Totes got Red 2 DDR! Bet you I can stretch 15 min. Also… we should get one of these for rec room. <3 see you soon!
Cat's mini-comm. disguised as a phone had a higher-than-normal priority listing in the medic's comm. systems. Logically, it was because she couldn't embellish her communications with emergency glyphs that would flash up to the fore. Genuinely, it was because the human was still too delicate an entity to be so autonomous and independent in Cleaver's mind, particularly when she insisted on hanging out with giant mechanical lifeforms.
The quick message popped up in Cleaver's HUD just as she was signing out the cat food and dozen other parcels at the counter. It took her a moment to translate out of 'Cat Text Speak', and she assumed that Cat wasn't referring to Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration...
Glad you two are having fun. Will look into buying some. Putting goods into SS's boot then shall meet you at your coordinates. <3
“Wow,” said Sideswipe as the first neon blur of arrows poured down the screen. He looked at Cat, switching to lazy Italian. “This isn’t very hard is it?”
To him the patterns of arrows and the timing came immediately, instantaneously, even through his holo-form. Interested now, because it was a video game and he could not deny his investment there if he tried, Sideswipe out in the parking lot refocused more processing power to what his hard-light avatar was doing. There was no real feeling from his avatar, only pings that told him the bottom of his holoform’s shoes were making solid contact with the flashing pressure pads on the DDR stage. He could see the challenge in the game – relying entirely on kinesthetic reflex and ‘muscle memory’ as humans might have said. Training your feet to know instinctively how to hit the triggers and without faltering or thinking… but his agro-tech algorithms processed the game like nothing. He liked the rythmn though.
“I choose the next song!” he said over the din of the machine, his right heel triple tapping the back pad before he hopped and landed two feet down on the left and right triggers. This song, he’d registered, was only 170 beats per minute. Slow motion. He Googled while the machine chirped PERFECT! YOU ROCK! “Ever heard of Paranoia Survivor Max?”
Out of the corner of her eye she could see his projection, moving smoothly without any sign of sweat or fatigue or… hell no sign that this was even difficult. Not that she was expecting it to be. Not-realness and neat robotics aside, he was used to switching up his feet to split-second signals, what with being a fighter and all, right?
Well, she wasn't. And she was feelin' it.
Luckily the arcade was kept cooler than the rest of the mall, so she could hide that little bit of fatigue for the moment, but… 'How fucking fast is Paranoia Survivor?'
She looked away long enough to focus back on the screen, just barely making it to the end of the song with minimum mistakes. Taking a cleansing breath she set her hands on her hips, enjoying the break. She had a feeling Sideswipe would beat her, and beat her bad, this next song.
'How much time we got left?' As she looked over her shoulder back at the clock she caught a glimpse of the small crowd that had gathered behind them, a mixture of teens and young adults of all stereotypes, sketchy included. 'Eh, a little more than five minutes. No biggie.' Ignoring the obvious glances, she payed attention to more important things. Like not letting Sides kick her ass at this game.
"Nope! Am I going to have a heart attack or what?"
Pinpointing the coordinates of Sideswipe's projection and Cat's portable comm. unit, Cleaver shut the boot of the red mech's physical form and began to slowly make her way across the Mall's sea of asphalt towards the Arcade. Sideswipe wasn't hissing violently at her about being stuck out in the open, and she was taking Cat's messages as a positive sign that the soldier was distracted having a good time. Something that he'd sorely needed.
And there were no signs in the immediate vicinity that he'd sunk enough power into his holoform to get into a brawl or anything else he might classify as 'fun'. Cleaver trusted the young woman who spoke to giant metallic aliens with friendly familiarity and no sign that she feared being crushed by them to keep him out of trouble.
It was safe to dawdle, Cleaver affirmed with a smile as she adjusted her bag over her shoulder and kept on walking.
<<I'm gonna have the old gal mosey in as they finished up 'Paranoia Survivor', so she can be at the back of the crowd watching their skillz. They can head back to base afterwards and leave Cleaver to pick up the brick oven and bridge it back, if you want. Up to you guys.>>