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.
“Again,” said Optimus, tone steady and unhurried, “the telling is up to you, Sniper. But nothing remains buried forever, certainly not when loyalties are changing. I would rather hear what you have to say from you and not some other less invested source..”
Optimus had not missed the train of Sniper’s words: him calling Optimus a ‘good’ mech, then the move toward a ‘price’ paid, and now death. Sniper was responsible for the deaths of soldiers during this war – Optimus had no doubt about it. However indirect, Sniper had followed Decepticon orders and brought about the deaths of Autobots during this war. Perhaps he only followed orders. Or perhaps he was every bit as vindictive and hungry for violence as the worst of the Cons. Time would tell. But this topic… Sniper cared about it. Clearly. It was on his mind even when his mind was apparently turned toward striking back at the Decepticons.
So what, exactly, had the Decepticons made him pay to wear the badge?
“The past you carry clearly has a weight to you,” continued Optimus. “In my experience, one does not carry the past like that unless they regret it. It is not about whether I would enjoy hearing the story, Sniper, only that I am willing to hear it. All of it, if you need to tell it.” A pause. “We are all of us different mechs now than we were at the start of the war.”
It was an ... odd situation, to say the least. And that was the main reason why Sniper would drive in silence for a while. It was obvious he was weighing his options. He had not been planning on telling the Optimus anything of value - partly because he didn't feel ready and partly, because he wa still sour about what had happened with the Nemesis and its coordinates. However, Prime's words - in all their wisdom which Sniper would never admit outloud - had moved something in him. He was never going to be ready to his story, but sometimes, it didn't matter. Sometimes, he had to.
'I would rather hear what you have to say from you and not some other less invested source.'
And now seemed to be one of those times.
"I had a team once," thy spy started, possibly when Optimus had already thought he wouldn't speak after all. Sniper's voice was like a strip of uncrackable code - no-one could quite make out what he was feeling behind it. "There were six of us," he continued. "I didn't realize it then but now ... they were the closest," Sniper left the sentence unfinished. He paused for a second and let his gaze follow the long, dark like that was the horizon. "We stole data. Sold and traded it. Information was a very powerful thing back then," it still was, but it held a different meaning now. It was of a different ... element. "And I can still remember how accelerating it all was. The thrill of the hunt, how we would celebrate afterwards. The way-," Sniper caught himself from falling into a fuzzy nostalgia. "I sold them out." He said finally, his voice clean of all the emotions it might have had. It rung empty. "Every single one of them."
A very heavy silence. Sniper would just stare nowhere. It all sounded so much worse when spoke it out loud.
"And I-," his spark twitched. He could still hear it - even if the memory file had been stored away and he would not dare open it, and unleash the horrors like Soundwave had done. "I heard them scream my name, begged me to help them, when the Decepticons pulled them apart one limb at a time. I watched them die," Sniper kept his frozen stare on the horizon as he drove. He had forgotten the Prime - he had forgotten everything for a moment."And I did nothing." And finally, the final 'nothing' he uttered was weighed by all the regret he carried on his shoulders.
Optimus didn’t say anything. For another very long moment he just drove, gently rounding another curve in the road and watching the pale stretch of his own headlights spread a sheet of white on the ribbon of road. He turned over the other mechs words for a moment, the glyph-signifiers, the low-grade static in the phonemes and how and where Sniper’s words broke off and broke down. Though Sniper did not ever manage to say it… it was apparent that this team of his had been cohort to him, in whatever fashion Sniper saw cohort.
He kept driving for a while. Then, “Why?”
He could have asked more, but somehow any elaboration on the question seemed… incorrect. Every elaboration was covered in that single word: Why did you sell them out? Why did you accept the deal? Why did you watch them die? Why did you do nothing?Why did the Decepticons kill them? Why did you join Megatron? Why did you do any of this? Why tell me? Why regret it? And somewhere in there: What are you looking for in the Autobots?
A very simple question, but the answer wasn't of the same nature. In fact, Sniper didn't have one. Not one that would have satisfied anyone, anyway. He had acted on selfish motives that the Prime wouldn't understand - or so he thought. But then, Optimus had proven time and again, that his understanding was almost without limits - sometimes even so that Sniper saw it more as a weakness than as a strength.
"I wish I could give you a noble reason," Sniper said, his voice like an echo from the not so distant past, when he had spoken the very same words to Bumblebee. "But I have none." A silence followed. The echo of Sniper's words rung hollow. They were empty, even if they cast a sad shadow. "They wanted to give our information loot to you," Sniper continued after a while, feeling like even the silence was trying to lure an explanation out of him. "All of it. Everything we ever stole, ever dealt. My life's work. I didn't want to give it up without a sufficient payment. A fair exchange." and then, a chuckle. It was more of a sad sigh, than chukle really - with a little bit of anger around edges when he said: "But I can't say that Megatron gave me one," It was obvious that Sniper had given the loot to the Decepticons instead. "All it bought be in the end was a place in Soundwave's shadow and a pile of dead team mates."
He didn't say 'friends'. He couldn't bring himself to say it. Sniper's EM field was snug and tense as he attempted to keep his feeligs at bay.
“We all have death on our shoulders, and your actions as a civilian however erroneous have no bearing on your position among us now,” said Optimus, his tone perfectly cool though not precisely devoid of emotion. There was a chord there, in this voice, of a mech who was not taking this confession for granted. Sniper had a history of treachery; as the most recent recipient of his loyalties that did not exactly sit with the Prime especially well. That said, if Sniper had treachery in mind – a possibility that Optimus, based on instinct, was doubting – he could little act upon it. Megatron had a very particular point of view on traitors, especially ones who had cost him what Sniper had cost him.
“Decepticon recruitment practices, as the war fell deeper and deeper into its mania, only became more brutal Sniper. In honesty, if they were were looking for a proof loyalty it is of some wonder to me that they did not make you kill them yourself. I cannot count to you the number of Autobots dead when their cohort kin turned their weapons on them to do no more than prove their commitment.” A hardness in his tone. “If you are looking to shock me, to horrify me, Sniper, you underestimate what it is that I have seen in this war.”
Optimus regretted his words immediately. Not because they were not true, but because he was not sure if that was what Sniper needed to hear. Honestly, he was not sure what Sniper wanted to hear, what he’d been looking for when he confessed his crime pre-dating his faction. Decepticon loyalties – they were forged in unspeakable atrocity. No wonder defectors came so far and so few. How many Decepticons could switch their signias? What crimes did they each and everyone have to confess? Better to stay in the ranks. Better to hold the line and never say a thing. And Autobots were hardly so different. Not always.
“What I mean, Sniper, is that it sounds that you’ve committed a crime against your owe. It does not seem to me that you need Autobot forgiveness in particular. In a way, that serves you: none of my Autobots have a personal vendetta against you. In another…” I cannot forgive you for something you haven’t forgiven yourself for, Sniper. “I am not sure that my opinion in this matter has any bearing. Your past is your own, Sniper.”