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.
Raw incredulity flared through her field before she could even think to censor it, and a hint of hurt that he would lie to her. "There isn't any working things out once they're decided." She didn't question the existence of such a point of authority, or consider that a cohort could exist without it; Labyrinth's absolute power had been too central to her life for too long. "And I know I'm..." A soft chitter of Basic - broken/damaged/not suitable for purpose - skirling up into a note of grief. It hurt to admit, hurt to think about, and she pushed in closer. " 'S why I'm trying to stay away from anyone who can make the decision."
Ironhide drew a deeper intake, the exvent chirred softly in denial - loved/cherished/youngling/ours. His hands tightened around her, as though physical presence could deny it even more, held safe and close.
"Bitlet," he began, only to have it stall, the words dying somewhere in his processor, threads trying to track her meaning and failing. The shape her protest took was something alien, something that made his tanks feel like dropping. He cleared his vocalizer and tried again. "Bitlet... no. Why... What makes you think that? There's no... there's no 'decision' making, Shadow luv. Or what there is, there's already been done." He pressed his helm to hers. "Ah've decided, bitlet, an' there ain't anything gonna make meh leave yeh. Jazz, Blue, they've decided to, an' yer here, yer ours. There ain't no one who can undo that."
Processor blanking - how to explain if Ironhide didn't already understand, how he could possibly not know - Shadow stood silent in Ironhide's hold. Cohort was important, cohort was everything, the only constant you could hope for...but cohort never held the power to choose. Ironhide was cohort, Jazz and Blue were cohort, and while they had invited her in and welcomed her...it seemed impossible that they could be the final word.
The mecha who loved you never made the decisions that mattered.
Her vents had locked up with the rest of her; she forced her systems back into motion, fans cycling to maximum in an effort to dispel some of the built up heat. "Someone always decides," she said with a stuttering exvent. Then, as if it would somehow clarify things, she added, "Labyrinth decided for us. Who was..." useful, valuable, "worthy of the Thirteen. He kept..." Another pause; she knew that everyone brought in after her had stayed in the cohort, but she wasn't sure no one had been weeded out before she arrived.
"As far as I know, he kept everyone he brought in," she said finally. "And we would have done anything for each other. But we knew it wasn't up to us." Glyphs and field begged him to understand. "Someone has to decide these things."
For a long moment there was no answer he could make, nothing that would, somehow, set the tangled train of her processing right. There were... points. He could see his own version of them, even if they bore none of the fear markers that her responses did. There had been no choice in the cohort he had known in his youth, none of the variables of personal preference that his current cohort had. There had also, however, been no decision to be made, and no one to make it, unless it was the factories on Cybertron and the Allspark itself. That someone had or would set a single solitary mech up as judge and arbitrator - quality control, like a manufacturing line, on a cohort... no.
A ranking officer had that kind of control over their squadron but you did not, could not, treat cohort as nothing but a squad. Ironhide had once existed in both, one and the same, but the divisions had been clear and after the ultimate base of their spark driven oath cohort had been the next highest priority, not the squadron.
"No, bitlet." It came out quiet, firm, pulsed in field and glyph, a resolute denial. He tucked her against his plates, her helm beneath his chin. "No. That's not how we do it. I promise you, no one has that authority. Not meh, not Jazz, not Cleaver or Chromia. NO ONE. Not even th' Prahm. No one decides, not like that, not for others. We choose for ourselves." He cupped her helm within his hand, letting love-cohort-mine vibrate between their plates. "An' like Ah told yeh, Ah've already chosen. Yer part of us, bitlet, an' nothin' an' no one has any right t' tell meh different. Only ones who decide that are yeh an' meh."
Shadow had a brief, nonsensical desire to ask Ironhide if he was sure. As if he would tell her anything else, when that certainty was pulsing through his field...but that certainty didn't didn't make what he was telling her seem any less impossible.
No one has that authority. We choose for ourselves.
This cohort tended toward things that were impossible, of course. Her inclusion was testament to that. It had all just seemed more plausible when she had believed Jazz held the power, when there had been someone to petition and appease. Even when Jazz had made it clear he was cohort, just like Ironhide and Blue, she hadn't questioned that there was someone, and Ironhide's reluctance to tell Cleaver about her had seemingly answered the question of who. It had fit what she knew and what she believed, and even provided its own twisted comfort: confirmation that he wanted to keep her, even while acknowledging she was not worth keeping, like a stray turbopuppy smuggled into his quarters and hidden.
"I don't understand." A cohort with no fixed point, no one making decisions, just...them. A cohort that could make its own choices and its own mistakes.
The idea was as terrifying as admitting she wanted a cohort had been, and she pushed it aside to be dealt with later. When she was less sure she was one of those mistakes.
For now, she leaned into Ironhide and let his certainty anchor her enough to admit, in tones raw and broken around the edges, "I hate not being able to understand."
Ironhide held her close, spark aching with the pain in her voice. His field covered where his plates couldn't, wrapping around her thick enough to almost be tactile. "Ah know, bitlet," he told her softly, "Ah know."
He vented shallowly, resting his chin atop her helm, processor threads ticking over what could or should be said. His voice, when he ventured it, was quiet. "Closest Ah know t' what yer describin' would've been th' cohorts in th' Guard. Cohort squadrons. We had rank, an' th' Captain of th' squad, he could say who stayed or went - in terms of a mission. Captain said where yer placement was, what yeh were t' do, or not do. Assigned duty an' discipline, could bust yer rank or put yeh in for advancement, had th' final say in pretty much everythin' havin' t' do with his squad."
Ironhide cycled another slow intake. "What he couldn't do - what nobody should've been able t' do - was have final say for th' cohort. Our roles in th' squad, sure, but we were sparked into a cohort an' we were meant t' die there. There wasn't any choice or decidin' t' be had. Yeh were who yeh were, yer cohort was what it was."
His arms tightened around her shoulders as he pressed his faceplates into the top of her helm. "Outta th' Guard, Ah found out there's all types. Everybody says 'cohort' but ain't many that mean th' same thing by it. Most of th' time... most of th' time it means bein' sparked int' it, an' if it don't then it means choosin', an' choosin' means nobody gets t' veto yer choice. Yeh follow meh, bitlet? Ah know it ain't what yer familiar with, but it's how it's done."
It didn't help, as far as making what Ironhide was telling her make any more sense. It was still comforting to be reminded that she wasn't the only one ever to have the universe tipped upside down, all of the old rules and absolutes swept away and replaced by something as alien as the organic world around them, or the only one to have done the unthinkable and outlived what should have been a constant.
In that, it helped enough to calm her, let her catch hold of the promise pulsing through his field, the one he had made at the start and never rescinded, but which still managed to keep slipping from her grasp like quicksilver: mine-cohort-safe-protected-mine.
"I'm sorry." Part of her thought she should have just pushed down her own doubts and fears and accepted, the way she would have with Labyrinth, but Ironhide wasn't Labyrinth and Labyrinth hadn't been cohort. Not like the Thirteen, not like this, and her spark rejected the idea of holding Ironhide or Jazz at that distance. "I'm trying, I just...it's hard to understand."
Right now, right here, understanding didn't matter, but Shadow knew - painfully - how easily that changed once she was away from the influence of her cohort. And staying tucked into the safety and reassurance of Ironhide's field wasn't an option, no matter how much it seemed like a good idea at the moment.
"I think," she said, reluctantly and making no move to actually extricate herself from Ironhide's hold, "I need a little while to just think about it. Somewhere else." She leaned in against him, because there was no point in pretending she wanted to move. "Pretty sure we've both figured out by now that just because something makes sense when you're holding my hand and walking me through it, doesn't mean it sticks when I'm on my own. Might as well get that part over with."
She pushed down her reluctance and pulled away. "I'll be good," she added with the vaguest twist of a smile. "I'll stay on the base, and I'll come back. Eventually. I promise. I just need some space."
Space, at least, was something the base didn't lack. Shadow picked the first corridor that seemed likely not to lead anywhere in particular, and quickly vanished into the darkness.