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.
Now, League wasn't a hard bot to sneak up on, but that didn't mean he was used to it by a long shot. The mech wheeled about to face the bot to tapped him on the shoulder, only to see the retreating form of Gasket. "Oh you little fragger! Next time you try that I'll put your aft through a wall." Of course with the din and shouts over Jazz's home-movie it was doubtful anyone heard the sub's dark mutters and in spite of his bluff and bluster he did nothing more violent then toss a now empty cube, completely missing it's target and clocking another bot in the head.(Just random bot, unless someone wants it to be otherwise)
Thankfully the high-grade was doing it's job and League soon forgot about the little transgression, grabbing two more cubes, taking deep droughts of each, alternating between them as he began to move away from the drink table to free up some space for other bots. Keeping near the back he began to settle down and watch what was going on, only to mumble a few comments and chuckle to himself, at least until he heard his name brought up, but what really caught his audios was the idea that he needed to be taught how to fight. "Ahoy there lad!" His voice boomed out "Me thinks we should 'learn' about fighting fliers from a bot who wasn't kicked out of a room by one!" though he had an oddly good nature tone to his voice as his druken persona began to take over, making the heavy set mech rather jolly.
While the noise-level escalated to a din that would have been nigh unbearable for most humans, and the gummy-throwing and high-grade sloshing was getting truly unruly, Optimus quietly moved to stand in the door way just behind Rhinox, who appeared for all intents and purposes to be blocking anyone in the room from escaping whatever Jazz had up on screen for them. The Prime was not unfamiliar with the routine, having had Jazz on more than a few strike operations in his time and the aftermath thereof. This particular tradition, or at least this un-serious show-and-tell side of it, was reserved exclusively for when things went right and no one died. Perhaps blown up a little bit, or maimed a tad ,but the end goal was a boost in team morale.
Optimus, folding his arms and leaning a shoulder against the door frame, again found himself grateful that Jazz had found his way back to their ranks. Despite the fragmented motely-crew jig-saw puzzle nature of the team here on Earth, it was a relief and a comfort to see everyone mutually hollering, laughing, and sharing space. Even Sniper, looking dour as ever, was having a drink. League wasn’t hiding in his room with his rocks. Shadowrunner was gleefully and expertly winging gummies at Jazz’s helm and it was just good to have won. It was so very rare the Autobots could take the offensive and just win, not defend, not stave of defeat and destruction… just win.
“Bluestreak and Legion are missing the show?” asked Optimus, leaning down to speak quietly to Rhinox.
"Mmm. Seems that way." Rhinox kept his optics on the goings-on, faithful to his post as door-guard, but his head tilted in Optimus's direction a bit. "I'm sure they'll be along." They wouldn't miss the light humiliation of their comrades for the world. Rhinox knew he was looking forward to Rattrap's adventure, after all.
As an afterthought, he offered his bag of energon goodies to his leader. "Want some?" He kept his voice pitched low, letting Optimus maintain his secrecy.
His only response to League, who had clearly already imbibed a large quantity of the stronger grade of energon, was a smile and a chuckle, slowly sidestepping as the inaccurate arm of the drunk Bot threw the empty cube past his helm. In other cases Gasket may have been worried about the target of the container but he could only smirk and shake his helm as he heard the cube disintegrate against a hard surface with no more effect than a snowball he'd seen human children throw during Earth's winter. In the back of his processor he filed a reminder to make sure League made it back to his quarters by the end of the night.
Pipe in hand, Gasket was settling in nicely. As he offhandedly listened to Jazz continue his tirade he made notes as to frame shapes and colors of his comrades, noting who he'd not met as of yet.
His optics, however, caught on something moving through the crowd, taking special note of the color... Bumblebee seems to be in an odd processor mode... Taking another puff of his pipe he looked down as Bee worked his way around behind Bulkhead muttering something in basic. Gasket could not hear what that was until the young scout turned to look directly at him.
“Not here.”
Confused, Gasket gave the little one a kind, calming smile. Looking for the cause he took another small toke and looked back up to the screen just as the image changed.
"Now, seekers can be tricksy mechs."
Bearings.
Deja vu hit the old bot hard as he watched Jazz narrate his actions, his entry to the armory, and him turning after not seeing his target. His frame froze and straightened up but he did not overtly react to the laughing, the cat calling, that accompanied the embarrassment intended for him. He did however take another strong toke from his pipe, shooting Jazz a look of annoyance, the smoke billowing from across his frame and the bowl of his pipe.
As Jazz finished his laying out of the more humorous aspect of Gasket's mistake the old bot quirked a tiny smile before venting a long thin line of smoke from his vocabulator in the direction of Jazz.
And, if all else fails...identify your hidden seeker foes when they pop up and shoot you in the face. Any questions?"
"No questions, young one. However, my back-strut almost wishes I had taken the first shot in the face."
Quirking a smile, trying to push away any lingering embarrassment, he put a servo on his back strut and stretched to emphasize the point.
Waiting a klik until everything quieted down, Gasket returned to his previous going on, notes. Looking back down he gave little Bumblebee a smile and stepped up to Bulkhead, putting a servo on his shoulder.
"Still got a little fight left in me... at least as long as this rusting back-strut holds out."
Chuckling he nodded at Bulk's reaction before stepping back. In that movement he saw the Prime who he merely nodded to. It was good to see the stoic leader of the autobots joining them for a little merriment even if Optimus retained his stoicism.
Bulkhead grinned up at the big older mech, giving him a thumb's up and a light punch at the old-timer's arm which Gasket avoided by stepping back. Winning and high grade made a heady sort of warmth in a body's circuits, one he'd gotten out of the habit of, and the feel now made him more effusive than he would have been otherwise. "Any fight you can walk away from," he called to the room at large, "is a slaggin' good fight!"
Which was something he'd learned with the Wreckers and oh, frag, Jazz was probably - almost certainly - going to... well, scrap. No wonder Bee was hiding, whatever the kid had done during the raid he wasn't looking forward to it being on the big screen. Bulkhead wasn't either, really, but eh... winning was still winning, stupid snafus or not. Another few cubes of high grade and he wouldn't care. Chuckling, Bulkhead went to grab another refill and a handful of gummies.
Jazz caught one thrown gummy and popped it in his mouth with a grin at Shadow. Oooh, it was one of the high-grade-infused ones, too....
He saluted Bulkhead. "And you, sir, are entirely right! Any fight you and your comrades can walk away from. Which leads me to my next point! POP QUIZ!"
He brought up footage of a hallway, obviously filmed through the eyes of a frontliner who was having a grand old time mowing down drones. Arma showed up and Jazz froze the action. "Exhibit 1: drones! Easily identified as Decepticons and therefore enemies by the fact that they are shooting at you and their distinctive frametype, by the way. Exhibit 2: large, blade-wielding ex-gladiator looking to chop your head off! Definitely an enemy. Aaaaaaaand, oh look, here is Exhibit 3: the wild Breakdown!"
The vantage point shifted, swung around, exploded into smoke, then froze again as Breakdown came into view.
"NOW. As some of you might know, Exhibit 3 presents an interesting dilemma. Ancient lore states that this Exhibit was once a Wrecker and thus...Autobot! However, now it is...trying to beat you to death with a hammer! Obviously Decepticon behavior! So, when an energy blast comes barreling down the corridor do you A) step aside to kindly let it hit your enemy, B) take the hit in the back because you were engrossed in witty banter, oooor--" Jazz let the video run at about half-speed, giving the audio, too. "--C) throw yourself heroically onto your opponent to save them from their own friendly fire?"
Jazz looked mock-thoughtfully at the video, which had helpfully stopped right at the point where Bulkhead was sprawled on top of and looking down at a very surprised Breakdown. "Survey says....oops?" Jazz slanted a look at Bulkhead. "Guess old habits die hard, eh, Bulk?"
Last Edit: Jul 31, 2012 22:38:21 GMT -5 by Deleted
Between the high grade and the good-natured longwave in the room, Shadow couldn't help relaxing in spite of herself, her own field slipping away from her frame to mingle with those nearest her, her laughter so much at what Bulkhead had done as at Jazz's cheerfully mocking narration and the shared good mood. Bulkhead seemed to be taking it the way it was intended, laughing despite the obvious chagrin in his expression, and she paused in flicking gummies at Jazz to bounce some off the former Wrecker.
"Hey, Bulk, I hope you do that good a job if you're ever watching my back," she called, when a gummy off the side of his helm finally pulled his attention to her. She gave him a teasing grin and another high velocity shower of candy. "Or is that kind of service reserved for the bad guys?"
The gummies weren't going to waste, at least, she noted with some amusement, as Rattrap scurried from his spot on the other side of Jazz, weaving perilously close to Bulkhead's pedes in his efforts to retrieve the gummies which hit the floor.
It was probably the general good mood which made her ping the small mech with a quick heads up before pelting him directly. Rattrap's optics flashed brighter, and he surprised her by snatching most of the gummies out of the air before dropping back to all fours, scrabbling after the ones he'd missed, and heading back to his spot near Jazz.
Bee stared appalled up at Bulkhead, then promptly burst into a fit of giggles as the rain of heckling immediately befell the bigger bot who appeared to Bee’s expert eye to be appropriately embarrassed with himself. The nature of the rivalry between Breakdown and Bulkhead was, in actuality, nothing to laugh at but the fact of the matter was that they’d been in this war for several millions years and the rivalries that persisted that long had a way of becoming comical. Not because the horrific facts of the hatred had changed so much as – barring a fatal resolution between the two rivals – laughing was required to keep from slipping into a kind of dark obsessive abyss.
“You do know that Breakdown is going to, like, harass you about that next time he fight you right?”
This harassment still ongoing, Optimus didn’t quite suppress the entirety of his smile at the ruckus of cat-calls, gummie-throwing, and laughter that directly followed Bulkhead’s segment of the show. Clearly, there had been some… unorthodox methods used to accomplish their objectives while on the Nemesis; Optimus himself being included among that number. It was with a slight sinking feeling that Optimus considered that, even if Soundwave had ripped through his sensor-net logs and corrupted a massive portion of his neural-grid – therefore losing any records of what happened – Blaster had been present for the entirety of the encounter with Ratbat.
He nodded to Gasket, who appeared unfazed by his segment in the show, if not slightly amused at all the hubbub. He opened a private shortwave on Gasket's frequency.
::Gasket, I believe you are scheduled off base? The Neutral's request?::
To Rhinox, he only leaned slightly closer to murmur, “Thank you, but no,” to the offer of the Cybertronian sweets. Best that kind of thing be left to his Autobots and, besides, they never quite tasted like he remembered them… Another burst of laughter from the crowd. Op shifted his weight, leaning again against the doorframe. “I have a feeling none of us will be spared Jazz’s attention in this.”
Rhinox shrugged and popped a goodie into his mouth. It was a little more tart than he remembered the ones from his favorite confectionary shop being, and the texture screamed 'homemade,' but it delighted him all the same.
"Mmm. I'm almost glad I didn't go," he answered, letting a smile show on his face. "But would you really have it any other way, Prime?"
The reaction he got from Bulkhead made him smile. The Wrecker was the closest thing he had to an "old" friend among this group of bots so any interaction between the two was always welcome. As a small memory of their meeting came back to him, Bulk shouted out the common motion "any one you walk away from..." which brought a deep and genuine laugh from the old bot.
He could not think of the last time he had felt so at ease.
Jazz spoke again as the final image from the last section vanished from the projector and Gasket's gaze was drawn upward again. Placing the pipe to his vocabulator he took another toke as the obnoxiously loud yet diminutive bot began the next section of his tirade.
The described event appeared to be about Bulkhead, no less, and Gasket allowed himself a smile. He would not laugh but afford the Wrecker a servo on the shoulder when the embarrassing moment occurred. However, as the image came to be, Jazz's voice ringing over the vids, Gasket's muscles tensed, his shoulders bunching slightly as he stood up away from the wall.
There he was, Breakdown. Blinking Gasket allowed the cat calling, the laughter, the comments to occur before he deigned to move again. Bulk had told him that Knock Out and Breakdown were now Cons but... well, seeing that from Bulk's point of view it was somewhat uncomfortable for the old bot.
Reaching out he placed a servo on his shoulder, gave it a pat and returned to his spot on the wall.
Twitching he blinked as a short wave com activated in his helm.
::Gasket, I believe you are scheduled off base? The Neutral's request?::
Oh my. I'd forgotten
Turning he glanced to Optimus, caught his optics and nodded. Taking one last glance across the room, nodding to any optics he caught, he turned toward the massive entryway. Dropping his servo onto Optimus' shoulder as he passed he opened his boiler and emptied his pipe into it before moving away from the raucous party and out toward the ground bridge.
Maybe he could get Ratchet in a good mood today. Smiling one last time he popped a single energon gummy that he had snagged into his mouth.
Bulkhead ducked his head, covering his face with his hands, when he realized the segment being shown was his own cameras, groaning quietly to himself for what came next. Jazz, the fragger, played it up, slowing the video feed to a dramatic playthrough of the tail end of the battle on the Nemesis and that last (stupid, glitch headed, deranged) explosion.
Primus help him, it was even WORSE looking on camera then it had been when he'd first realized what he'd done.
The laughter and cat calls started up before Jazz had finished speaking and Bulkhead sheepishly dropped his hands and took his due like a Wrecker - which was to say, mortified and unrepentant all at the same time. He didn't properly know how he felt about what he'd done and he sure as scrap wasn't going to figure it out in the midst of a heckling crowd of his rapidly overcharging team. Later, maybe... Frag it.
In the meantime he'd pulled a tactically dumb move but a morally sound one and he wasn't going to feel bad for it. So he took the ribbing (and the shower of gummies, which made a great chaser for the high grade) and waved them all off. "Yeah, yeah, I know - Shadow, I pull that move on you, we'll be scrapin' you off the concrete! Primus, Bee, don't remind me! I know, I know, one for the dumb move books - but hey, where else was I gonna duck except where BD was standin'? Big lug was in the way!"
Gasket's hand on his shoulder was a welcome counterpoint to the laughter, for all that the squeeze conveyed the big mech's disturbance. Well... yeah. Last time Gasket had seen Breakdown, it had been when he and Bulkhead had been laying waste to a mess of 'Cons while laughing their battle-high afts off. They'd talked, but seeing the reality now had to be a shock to the oldtimer's tank. He still took the time to convey a rough sympathy in the squeeze on Bulkhead's shoulder and the former Wrecker appreciated it, pinging the larger mech back with gratitude.
"Okay, enough already," he shouted back at the rest of them, "yeah, Bulkhead does dumb things, news flash - never mind, we all know it anyways! Who's next?"
Steeljaw approached the rec room with non-existent 'whiskers' not quite twitching, a vibration of curiosity with a dash of hope in his field. That smelled... well, underneath the omnipresent heavy tang of high grade that smelled remarkably like...
The noise of the room from the doorway was ten times worse then it was from down the hall. The symbiont briefly flattened himself behind the Prime's feet, audials twitching as he hastily dialed down his audial feed and started trying to pick out what all he was hearing. Most of the base, or at least those who weren't out on patrol or still waiting on Ratchet's mercy. Jazz was conducting a sort of show and tell which Steeljaw had already seen, having helped the saboteur splice it all together from the mission recorders, and the current target seemed to be Bulkhead, who was good naturedly yelling back at all the others who were heckling him.
And flying through the air in little showers were...
Steeljaw huffed. Alright. That was worth the danger of being stepped on and the assault to his audials.
He wound around the Prime and Rhinox's pedes, field flickering greeting and reassurance at them as he passed - he had routed the monitors to his own HUD, making the actual physical monitor banks unnecessary - and darted his way across the rec room in a fluid streak of gold to scramble up onto the back of Shadowrunner's seat. "You've been holding out on me," he told her and leaned across her shoulder to neatly snag a gummy from the handful she was holding with his fangs. Tossing his head back to get it more firmly in his teeth, he vented a pleased rush as the sweet taste melted across his sensors.
Jazz had been happy to see Optimus sneak in. He had an unofficial rule about the recaps: never recap a performance if the mecha involved weren't present to be properly humiliated. But, since Optimus was right here....
Rank, as well Jazz knew Optimus knew, was no defense against such things. Not when Jazz was running the show.
Jazz quickly shuffled the queue and spoke up over the dull roar of laughter and Bulkhead's humiliation. "SPEAKING of flinging one's self onto the enemy...." He grinned at Optimus, his grin only widening as Blaster groaned in the audience. "...it appears to have been in fashion!"
"Now, this next clip is kind of hard to see. As we all know, the Nemesis is not big on bright, happy lighting, and this happens rather fast. So, allow me to give you a rendering of what you're going to see next." The projection skipped to a static drawing, rather similar in style to human stick figures. Jazz pointed out the corridor walls, the console, and the little boxes that represented Optimus (red, with exaggerated grey smokestacks on top of its blue helm) and Blaster (red, with the little emitter symbol for a communications officer on his chest). Then he split the screen, showing the little stick figures side by side with actual video taken from Blaster's recordings.
Very delicately edited video. Having your processor slammed by Soundwave was the kind of damage that made a lot of mecha who'd never blink at losing several limbs shudder. Watching Optimus stagger and short out hadn't been particularly funny except in parts. Luckily, two snarky mechs had found those parts and edited them together in a slideshow that stripped the visuals of their tank-chilling context. And being shown next to cute stick figures helped as well as Jazz fast-forwarded and ad-libbed past Optimus getting hit by Soundwave.
"--Now! Observe! Here's the tricky part! We add into all of this...one cassette."
A frankly CHIBI and ADORABLE Ratbat stickfigure appeared in the room, the vid next to it showing a shot of said real-life and much less chibi version mantling in front of the doorway.
"One very...well, I don't know if I'd call that brave. One very SOMETHING cassette. Who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time..." Stick figure and real-life Optimuses (Optimi?) fell backwards in slow motion, squishing the Ratbats against the wall. Real-life Ratbat disappeared from sight behind Optimus' head, while chibi!Ratbat fluffed out and flapped in jerky, animated chibi alarm from behind chibi!Optimus' smokestacks.
Jazz looked at the screen. "Now, Optimus, personally? I think that you might've done Ratbat a favor. I mean...he's discovered a new transformation!" The animations rewound, then moved forward again. "Ratbat...to Flatbat!"
The animation continued on in slideshow form, chibi and real-life Blasters hopping up and down, swatting at Flatbats on Optimi's heads as the Optimi were unhelpfully confused. "Personally, I think that the new Flatbat modification was really fetching. Obviously Blaster didn't agree...."
"RATBAT! You glitch-fragger! Let go of him or I’m putting a plasma slug through your tiny brain pan! KNOCK IT OFF OR I’LL DROP HIM ON TOP OF YOU! YOU WILL REGRET ALL OF YOUR CHOICES!”
The communications mech's words set off a burst of sniggering, combined as they were with chibi!Ratbat looking indignant and real-life Ratbat clinging somewhat drunkenly to Optimus' head.
Jazz held out his hands as the slideshow continued on. "Now, fear not, folks, no Ratbats were harmed in the making of this--" Behind him, Optimi flung Ratbats off their heads. "--oh, who'm I kidding?"
Chibi!Ratbat flapped in outrage, squeaking over and over, "Silence! You DARE threaten me? Silence! You DARE threaten me?"
Shadow reflexively reached up with her free hand to rub the base of Steeljaw's audials, the other moving so that he could more easily reach the gummies. "'Holding out' implies I knew about these before I got here," she said, "and I found out when I got to the party, just like you. Not my fault you decided to show up after most of the fun was over."
Or as the fun was just starting, she amended silently as Jazz started in on Optimus, of all mecha. She hadn't expected that, and she shot a wary glance toward the Prime's tall figure, even as she laughed along with everyone else.
Satisfied that Jazz was not about to be summarily executed for his mockery, she offered Jaws another gummy, only to catch Rattrap watching her with a disgruntled expression. As if he couldn't get his own bag of treats...but then again, so could Steeljaw, who seemed perfectly content to sprawl across the back of her seat and be fed.
Fine.
Judging from Rattrap's expression,which was not all that dissimilar from chibi!Flatbat's expression when stick!Optimus landed on him, an energon gummy between the optics was not what their resident vermin had expected. Shadow wasn't going to throw gummies at Optimus the way she had Bulkhead, but, satisfied Rattrap had gotten the point, she pelted Jazz with them again; he didn't seem to mind either the showers of candy or Rattrap scuttling around near his pedes to gather said candy up.
She settled back with her helm resting closer to Steeljaw. ::Apparently,:: she commed silently, digging into the bag for a fresh handful, ::Rattrap hasn't gotten the memo about who the feline overlord on this base is. You should do something about that.:: She grinned, amusement flashing through her field. ::And not because I want to see him getting chased around like a mouse. Well, not just because.::