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.
It came out blurry with static still, the comm equivalent of gritted through his fangs, but otherwise steady. It was like a little bit of reset, the comforting cling against a bipedal frame and the warmth of another spark against his own. Steeljaw vented cycles of air through his systems, forcing himself to taste the alien tang of it, and slowly forced himself to unclasp. ::And of course we look hot together. I'm the ultimate accessory.::
It was weak but almost, nearly, something like what he might have normally said. His clamps kept fluctuating, trying to cling back on - with a heave Steeljaw forced them to disconnect and then had to twist in a rapid scramble to transform his pedes back out underneath him before he landed on the ground. It was ugly and awkward and clumsy, but he managed, claws sinking back into the grated floor of the washracks.
Which left him on the floor, where he least liked to be, claws sunk into grate slats and hooked tight, and so much tension in his lines he didn't dare move for fear of tearing something. Brilliant.
That ascerbic snarl sounded more like himself as well, for which he was oddly grateful. "I think," he managed aloud, rasping, "that I'm stuck." Which was beyond ridiculous and he modified it out of habit. "Paint. Drying. A little help, here, if you would?"
"Yes, sir, your Overlordness." Jazz reached down, wrapping his arms around Steeljaw's middle. As he pulled, he felt more than just paint drying. Steeljaw's hydraulics and the limbs they moved might as well have been unliving metal posts. And his claws were dug into the grates so much that they only came out with twenty screeches of metal on metal.
All right, that was it. If Steeljaw wanted space, he'd no doubt be upfront and acid-tongued in letting Jazz know, and that'd be fine.
Jazz pulled Steeljaw up to his chest, holding him high enough that he could step into the tub himself, then sat down, cat and all. He reclined back, letting Steeljaw's feet find purchase on his frame as the warm solvent seeped under their plates. He grinned at Shadow as he picked up the brush sitting on the bottom of the tub. "One scrubdown, coming right up."
<<ooc: Jazz isn't trying to steal the show here, he's more just upset that Steeljaw's upset and trying to combat it by being supportive in one of the only ways he knows how. Also hey, physical closeness seemed to help, so he figures that two frames close washing Steeljaw might help even more.>>
"If I'd known he was going to stick to the floor, I'd have just soaked him off like road tar," Shadow said as she retrieved another brush. It was a relief to have Jazz taking the lead, and she gave him a quick smile.
Leaving Steeljaws' forequarters to Jazz, she lightly settled one hand one the symbiont's rigid body and started on the orange paint covering his hind leg. "I'd say at least the paint isn't completely dry yet," shaking her head a little over the multi-colored smears in new places, "but we're going to be detailing you for hours."
Or pampering. Or possibly just testing his tolerance for petting, snuggling, and generally fussing over.
<<OOC: Now that Jazz has taken charge, Shadow will just naturally follow his lead.>>
Steeljaw shuttered his optics and concentrated on his ventilations, steady circulations of air through his systems drawn in through the vents above liquid and expelled in flurries of microbubbles around the edges of his plates beneath the solvent. Invent, watching his internal temperature dip, exvent, rise.
The feeling of paint - sticky, unnatural, glopped on and slowly drying - being scrubbed away was its own tension relaxant and his hindpede, of its own accord, stretched into Shadow's accommodating hands. Exventing through mouth and vents alike, Steeljaw rested the flat of his head against Jazz's shoulder, thumping lightly into the other mech's plating. His vocalizer clicked over into static, quickly swallowed down, and he substituted a low-fidelity plate to plate comm instead. ::...I turned Uplink off.::
Jazz's optics dimmed, his scrubbing continuing even as he rested his chin on top of Steeljaw's helm, responding the same way. ::Can't even imagine what that must be like, mech. I'm sorry you've got to go through this over something so silly. No beatin' yourself up about it, it was just Pitbent luck.::
Jazz's hands finished working over Steeljaw's back and worked their way forward, swishing solvent over shoulders and then tackling paint that had worked its way in under the plates. ::I hope you know that we're here for you, 'n no one else needs to know. You need to talk, or you need me to take a look at something, I'm your mech. You know your systems better'n I do, but I've worked with spec ops mole programming and alternate personality matrices before, so I know something about something, at least.:: He moved from one shoulder to the other, the brush a long pressure across the back in between.
He switched to verbal, tipping his head to smile at Shadow. "Hours and hours. We got your back. And detailing and warm places to recharge are always available. Honestly, are you still recharging in the vents? We need to get on outfitting your pillowroom. You know, they've got these infrared heaters now...."
Steeljaw steadied himself on three pedes, pushing one rear leg into Shadow's hands where she was scrubbing at the paint on his pads and keeping himself balanced by pressing against Jazz's chassis. "A heater would be nice," he managed to grate out aloud. "Pillows. Have to Rattrap proof it. And human proof it."
He vented slowly, shaky, carefully not looking at Shadow, or Jazz, just leaning into the warmth of their fields and the hands which were scrubbing him. "...could you jack in?" he said at last, and only belatedly realized he had said it aloud. Wincing, he ducked his head, shoving lightly at Jazz. "I need to turn my backup back on," he added lamely for Shadow's benefit, "and right now I think I need a spotter."
Jazz finished scrubbing, swishing his hands to swirl water beneath plates and carry away the last of the paint. "Sure can."
He and Shadow shared an unobtrusive look over Steeljaw's head, but Jazz just nodded in a way he hoped communicated "It's ok, I got this, he's not great but I'll tell you later." Some of that came through, evidently, because she nodded and kept on scrubbying at a different foot.
Jazz extended a cable, hooking in at the port on Steeljaw's neck. Handshaking protocols, and then he was in Steeljaw's processor's waiting room.
His hands kept swishing warm solvent over plates that didn't really need it.
//Honored that you'd want me here, Jaws. You sure you're up to this right now?//
Shuddering slightly, Steeljaw shuttered his optics and leaned into their combined hands and warmth. It was different and strange and comforting all at once, much like Jazz's touch against his processor. The saboteur slotted in awkwardly - no fault to the other mech, but anything that was not a quantum symbiont bond had always felt odd, distant and awkward to a processor that was used to more.
A 'more' that was completely and utterly missing, cold and gray and lifeless like a portion of his spark missing. Exactly like a portion of his spark missing, and Steeljaw swallowed back a sound like a keen and forced himself to concentrate on the here and now, on the protocols stretching on wires between Jazz and himself, on Shadow's hands on his rear pedes and scrubbing the remnants of paint from his tail. Shivering, he pressed himself between them, willing the coldness away.
//No,// he managed, the clipped glyphs one step above basic. //Not sure, but I can't recharge like this. The silence - I'll gnaw my own pedes off if I leave it like this.//
Deep ventilation in, deep ventilation out. Warm solvent, warm hands, close warm frames of two friends, and he had never been so cold and empty in his life. Vents hitching, Steeljaw unfurled his processor map to Jazz, marking the order of the tree that needed to be turned on, then, after a strut deep shudder, pinged the other mech his own access codes. //You see? Just... make sure I don't do anything else stupid. I can't afford any more stupid right now.//
One more ventilation, and then it was all or nothing. Steeljaw set off the first switch in the cascade that should, if it worked right, bring his backup memory core back online.
Jazz sent an glyph of affirmation as Steeljaw showed him around. Most of what he could see was familiar. Mecha weren't THAT different, after all. Every now and then, though, they'd run across something strange, something Jazz figured had to do with symbiotes or with whatever Steeljaw had done with Uplink in his own processor. They followed that tree to its root, and Jazz could see that THAT was...special. Complex. WAY more complex than any simple backup or accessory process had any right to be.
Jazz accepted the access codes with the sincere desire that he wouldn't have to use them. Because Primus only knew what kind of damage he could do without even realizing it, if the wrong thing went wrong in the wrong way. Still, he sent, //Got your back, mech. Do what you've gotta do.//
Then Steeljaw did, and the indicated tree bloomed as it was activated, and Jazz got a firsthand look, up close and personal, of why one does not give a full cortex backup READ-WRITE ACCESS TO ONE'S MEMORY CORE.
Jazz watched as the backup and the core both activated, a flurry of connections sought and made and overall an incredible amount of very familiar reads and writes going on as Uplink's backup came online and accessed its memory, sought information, monitored status, and formulated responses.
And, really, how was that different from what an actual mecha's processor does?
The doubling of processing was eerie, as if Jazz was hooked up to two mecha at the same time.
And then half of that processing pinged his connection and turned its attention to him. //??//
Jazz did the only thing he could think of: when in doubt, be friendly. //Uh. Hi?//
Steeljaw had the satisfaction of feeling everything, for once, go right - Uplink came online smoothly, nothing glitched or wrong, and there was just the burst of completeness and rightness, his carrier's voice slotting seamlessly back into his systems even if Uplink was annoyed as scrap. There was a flurry of exchanges - [DON'T do that again!] //No, no, I won't, I'm sorry...// [Scared me, Jaws, Primus...] //Sorry, I fragged up, it won't happen again...//
And then there was the moment when everything, like watching an explosion you were helpless to prevent, went wrong.
Steeljaw felt it the moment Uplink noticed the external hardline, felt his carrier's metaphorical brow ridges shoot straight up and oh scrap, frag, rust, this was bad, this was really, really bad...
//Uh. Hi?// Jazz offered.
[Hello,] Uplink purred, and oh SCRAP, frag his life, this was BAD.
//No!// Steeljaw yelped, trying to mentally insert himself between the two and not-so-subtly shove Jazz back out of the connection. //No, no, stop it! Leave him alone! Stop it right this instant!//
Uplink protested. [Just saying 'hi'!]
//There is no 'just saying hi' with you!// Steeljaw snapped back, wedging a firewall between his carrier and Jazz. //There's just-// he flailied mentally, spitting over the available words, and finally devolved to English because there was nothing quite so outraged sounding as scandalized British colloquialisms in Cybertronian, //-'hi, hello, and do you fancy a HOT SHAG'! He's our employer! Stop it!//
And Uplink was just laughing at him, the glitch, loud enough to be felt through the firewall, laughing in that way he did when he thought Steeljaw was being unbearably 'cute'. Groaning to himself, Steeljaw firmly pushed Jazz out of the link, tendrils unfurling to tug the hardline free.
"Sorry," he mumbled, mortified, his faceplates smashed against Jazz's chassis. "Sorry. Don't take it personally. It's a personality glitch."
Last Edit: Oct 10, 2012 14:43:12 GMT -5 by Deleted
It took all of Jazz's (in)considerable self-control to not laugh. No, no, bad Jazz, no laughing at Steeljaw. No laughing because the fact that he was carrying around what appeared to be a fully-functioning AI copy of his dead carrier was Not Funny. Not at all. Even if said AI had all but propositioned Jazz in the course of one well-chosen glyph.
So, Jazz did not laugh. Though it was a near thing. He couldn't keep his field, though, from dancing with amusement and relief. Obviously all was well enough if Jaws had time to be mortified.
He looked down at Steeljaw and was utterly unable to keep the smile off his face. "Personality glitch, huh? Looks like SOME personality. That was Uplink, I take it?"
Steeljaw shoved, hard enough to set Jazz back against the lip of the tub, field a mix of relief and irritation and dear Primus SHUT UP. Uplink was still laughing, the amusement echoing between them as a balm of reassurance - no harm done, with a bitter edge of better to laugh than the alternative. Glitch. Slagger, and the symbiont wasn't sure which of the bipedals, framed or not, he meant.
Venting - a full exvent that sent up bubbles and splashes of solvent from submerged vents - he gave Jazz another shove with his head. "Yes, that was Uplink." He slipped his hind pedes out from Shadow's grasp, turning neatly double in the cramped space of the tub to reorient with his head in Shadow's lap and his back pointedly oriented towards Jazz. Reluctantly, he met the femme's more-than-slightly-confused gaze. "My secondary processor is Uplink's backup memory core," he explained miserably. "It's... programmed to respond in something like his voice." Raising his head, he slanted a tired glare at Jazz. "And Uplink was... was a plate loose irresponsible half-charged GLITCH," he concluded in a plate ruffled irritated rush.
Last Edit: Oct 17, 2012 12:13:02 GMT -5 by Deleted
Which explained only slightly more than nothing, but it was none of her business and really, so long as Jazz was laughing in field if not in frame, Shadow assumed things were all right enough.
"Plate loose irresponsible glitch," she echoed. "That does explain why he'd get along with Jazz."
There was the tiniest hitch in her field when she said it, not quite a flinch; teasing and cohort went together, but she was still fumbling to learn where Jazz fit on the spectrum of cohort and command. It was harder to dread punishment when Jazz was half submerged in a tub of paint clouded solvent with a wet and slightly embarrassed-looking cat sitting on his chassis, however, and she managed to force a grin at him before she dropped her gaze back to Jaws.
"You want me to leave you two alone?" she asked, running a thumb along the base of one audial. "Because I can do that if you'd be more comfortable."
Jazz mimed shock and bewilderment. "Me? Me. I'm hurt. Truly, I am...." He sent a teasing glyph of a smile to Shadow. It was a big step that she be able to joke with him like that, and he appreciated it. He also wanted to encourage it. Anything she never would have done with Labyrinth was exactly what he wanted her to do with him. And that couldn't happen fast enough, as far as Jazz was concerned.
Jazz didn't comment on Steeljaw's obvious almost-shoulder-licking levels of disdain. Obviously Uplink's...tendencies were a longstanding source of embarrassment for the cassette. Having Uplink in his head while doing it was no doubt even worse.
Jazz had to wonder at the level of AI that Steeljaw had harbored. The symbiont had told Jazz once that it was a backup run off a fourth-tier processor, responsive only because it could do very quick search queries to its own databanks. That...was true, Jazz supposed, though he had seen considerably MORE than that in Steeljaw's systems. A processor with sensor access, databank read-write access, and all the programming of a mech available? Sounded AWFUL like a fully-functioning AI to Jazz.
He didn't say anything, of course. It was Steeljaw's deal, and just the way Steeljaw's field had leapt with relief when Uplink had come online said all that needed to be said. Jazz merely kept smiling and used the scrub brush to attack a bit of paint on one hindquarter that Shadow hadn't gotten to yet.
<<Jazz is just sitting there Not Laughing and Being Helpful. Feel free to skip him and to end whenever. >>
Steeljaw pressed his face against Shadow's chassis. It was an old gesture, a familiar one, his face pressed close to a spark, and he could think about that right now - and other bipedal frames he can done it with - without the pang of pain that usually accompanied it. Mostly because his systems were bordering on too exhausted to sustain higher emotional routines, drained from the utter frag cluster bomb that had been his reset after the testing protocols. Shadow was comfortable, a known familiar presence and frame that he could lean into easily, and without the twitching convolute play of words and ideas that sometimes characterized Jazz.
"No," he answered bluntly, shoving his head a little harder into her plating. "Rather you stayed." The rest hovered on the edge of his vocalizer, but with another exvent he switched to comms, the word glyphs forming easier transmitted plate to plate. ::Please? I don't want to be alone right now.::