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.
Startled, Miss Pauling nearly set down her cup. She regarded Soledad for a moment in amazement, her eyes wide behind her tinted sunglasses; the avatar was evidently more expressive than the Autobot himself, who more often than not carried himself with an unshakable air of good-natured serenity.
Inwardly, the remark took Smokescreen aback. Soledad had struck him as a girl much older than her young years - a little warier, a little wiser than others her age. Even among her own kind she seemed to hold herself apart, as if she did not entirely trust her fellow humans. It was only a hunch, and he could admit to himself that he was not familiar enough yet with the planet's dominant species to pass any sort of psychological evaluation upon them. It was merely a thought that had come to him out of the blue.
Sometimes, it worried him. Smokenscreen did not know what might have made her shy from other humans and keep them at a distance, and he was not sure it was his business to find out. A young girl travelling alone, alone when she had been captured by the Decepticons... well, it gave him concern. But for the time being he knew it best to bite his tongue and be a friend, and not a nosy shrink.
And... he could also admit that right now, he was happy to content himself with being touched by her remark.
"Thank you, Soledad," said Miss Pauling when she had found her voice again. She smiled through her gravity and leaned her chin on her folded wrists. "That means a lot, to hear you say it. I hope we can live up to your trust, even through the rocky parts."
For a moment, when Miss Pauling fell silent in surprise, Soledad worried she'd revealed too much or said something she shouldn't (again). I have to be more careful than this! cried the voice in her head that knew better, half scolding and half wailing. I know better, what's wrong with me?
But the moment passed and Miss Pauling relaxed and smiled, letting Soledad relax too. Whatever it had been that Smokescreen found objectionable, it apparently wasn't enough to make a big deal over. "You're welcome," she answered quietly, and dropped her gaze to fiddle with the last crumbs of her dessert. She wasn't really hungry anymore, but she couldn't share with her companion and it seemed a shame to let it go to waste.
"If you ever get to where you can taste things," she said, "let me know. Next time I'll treat you to coffee and cake."
"Oh, that'll just go straight to my butt," said Miss Pauling with a sigh. She jokingly feigned turning around in her seat to look down her back and patted her hip. Evidently the giant space robot was enjoying messing about with this particular avatar, possibly a little too much.
Smokescreen hesitated before speaking again. He studied Soledad curiously. She had gone quiet again, with a distant look cast down at her dessert. He had seen that look in her eyes before, as if her mind was a million miles elsewhere. Exactly where, he could not say. He wondered at it sometimes. It made her look sad at times, though he was still unused to the subtle nuances of human body language and could not put his finger on just what worried him about it. For now, he knew he was best to content himself with watching her- and being a friend.
Miss Pauling rested her chin on her folded wrists again. "If I ever do gain the ability to taste, I will literally run over to take you up on that offer," she said, grinning. "Is there anything else I can order for you while we're here? Heck, anywhere else I can take you while we're here in the city? I've got radar running full-bore now, no more unpleasant surprises- radar traffic cops included. Ha!"
That got an appreciative snicker from Soledad. "Lucky you," she grinned, sweeping up her crumbs. "No, I think I'm okay for now. I'm ready to meander in the general direction of home if you are, I guess." No real reason to hurry back, not without-
-Shadow-
Soledad's breath hitched. She forced a smile past it as she gathered up her trash. "Although - could we stop at a Walmart or something on the way? I could use a new pair of jeans." She cast a mournful glance at her only pair, still with the slash mark across the thigh. Soledad's money was almost out, but she thought she could get a new pair of jeans if she found some on clearance.
There was a sort of squealing honk from outside Starbucks. Several people standing in the parking looked about in confusion, searching for the car that had beeped its horn.
Inside the cafe, Miss Pauling looked as composed as ever. When she spoke however, it was excitedly.
"Oh my god!" she said. She pressed her hands together in front of her lips. Her eyes sparkled behind her sunglasses. "Hell, yes! Could we really go to Walmart? I've always wanted to go into a Walmart! I bet it's just like one of the big chain spaceports, only with fewer annoying adbots. Oh my gosh. I know of a Walmart a short drive from here. I can totally GPS us there. I've never had a chance to go inside it before. This is a crime. Oh, let's go. I'm going to ogle the cell phones. And the kitchen appliances! I want to buy a blender. No reason, I'm just hung up on blenders for some reason. They're like little torture devices that have been approved by the National Safety Board. I am not a sadist, honest. I just think they're neat."
Soledad stared at her a moment, jaw practically on the table, before starting to giggle. "You," she grinned, sinking back in her chair. "are adorable. You know Walmarts aren't usually considered a tourist attraction around here, right? What are you going to do when you go to, like, Disney World or something?"
Probably explode from squee. Soledad kind of wished she could see Smokescreen's real face right now. He had a lot more control over "Miss Pauling's" expression. "And what are you going to do with a blender, anyway? You can't drink lattes, so I'm pretty sure you can't drink smoothies either." She started to chortle again. "Although - oh man, I'm picturing you making a smoothie bar in the rec room for when Jack and them get back from school. And when Nurse Darby gets back from work too-" Her eyes sparkled as she dissolved in giggles. "Okay, sold. We're getting you a blender."
"Oh my god!" That was a possibility that Smokescreen had not considered.
Miss Pauling sat in a daze. His holomatter avatar drive was quite advanced, as befitting an Autobot more often than not streamlined into diplomatic duties on foreign worlds. It could handle many simple tasks. Blending smoothies for the natives of Earth was a diplomatic duty. Boy, the kids would love that. Perhaps Nurse Darby would as well. Especially if he mixed vodka into it. He always had been rather popular amongst the members of the Diplomatic Corps for a reason.
She blinked and focused back on Soledad's face.
"You are a genius!" she said. "Oh my gosh. Oh, let's go!" She stood up and fumbled at the back of her chair for a purse she wasn't carrying. "Jeans and a blender. And like... a whole lot of fruit. And ice. You can't see it, but I am downloading smoothie recipes as we speak. Oh man. This is going to be great. Can we get one of those carts to push around too while we're at the store? I know we won't really need one, but let me live the dream."
Soledad chortled and shook her head. "I would never take that experience away from you. I'll even let you be in charge of pushing the cart."
The sun felt oppressively hot after the climate-controlled comfort inside the Starbucks; the heat settled over them both like an itchy blanket. Soledad strode to Smokescreen's passenger side, giving him a pat on the door before climbing in just in case the larger part of Smokescreen was dozing in the sunshine. It was hot inside the Autobot's cab too, so Soledad rolled down the window to disperse the stuffiness. "You need yogurt too," she informed him as she gingerly buckled herself in. "To get the smoothie texture. Otherwise you just wind up with fruit mush. I mean, ice cream or sherbert works too, I guess, but unless we got that right before we bridged back it'd be soup by the time we got it home."
Miss Pauling climbed in and gently shut the door behind her. Rather humorously, despite being an avatar she too did up her seat belt. Then again, considering that a passing police car might take umbrage to an unbuckled driver, perhaps it was for the best.
"Oh, I didn't even think about that," she said as Smokescreen started his engine and backed out of the garage. He checked the street before pulling out onto it, then drove off into the flow of traffic. Miss Pauling looked chagrined, but only for an instant; she brightened a moment later. "Oh! But that just means that perhaps I should get a cooler as well. And some ice! Maybe a mini-fridge?"
So now they were getting a mini-fridge as well.
Guided by his knowledge of the local Vegas streets - and his handy on-board GPS - Smokescreen found his way to the Walmart he had spoken of earlier. It was not a long drive, a quick jaunt that was just far enough away to give Soledad a chance to enjoy the pleasant breeze that blew through the window, ruffling her hair. The parking lot was sunny and full of cars and shopping carts, and the usual Walmart crazies. The Autobot had to drive around in vain twice before he finally spotted a parking space.
"I think it is time to bid Miss Pauling a fond farewell," he said with a chuckle as he shut down his engine. The avatar got a preoccupied look on her face, shimmered, and turned into a teenage boy not much older than Soledad herself. He was ginger and freckled, and wore scruffy jeans and a grey Reebok hoodie with the hood pulled up and over his head.
He grinned at Soledad as he opened the door and stepped out. "I wonder what High Command would say if they knew I was using this generator for pretty much my own amusement. Unless you think we could write off this trip as a diplomatic exercise? Do you think you could pass yourself off as an ambassador of Earth if they were to make an inquiry? Or like... a cultural attaché?"
Soledad gave Smokescreen's new avatar an appreciative look. Miss Pauling had been perfect in every way, but this one was kind of hot.
"Native guide," she confided, "at the very least." She headed across the parking lot with him, joining those streaming into the Mecca of low prices and questionable business practices. "The first thing you need to know about Walmart," she told him, "is everyone shops at Walmart. Even people who claim they don't. They always wind up here sooner or later. It's late and all the other shops are closed, or they're someplace unfamiliar, or it's just so damn cheap and convenient." She waved a hand. "That's how they suck you in."
The greeter was an elderly white woman handing out flyers for the attached McDonalds; Soledad accepted one and tucked it in her pocket, and looked around while Smokescreen was still scrutinizing his with the air of an explorer consulting a map. "Housewares, housewares," she mused, "should be in the middle somewhere. Oh, I see towels. That's a step in the right direction. Come on."
She grabbed a cart, and as promised, let Smokescreen push it as they headed deep into the retail jungle.
Smokescreen was delighted by the greeter, and made no effort to disguise it. He accepted his flyer with wide eyes, and then bombarded the poor old lady with questions - what was it like being a Walmart greeter? Did she get to greet a lot of interesting people? Did she ever get to throw out the crazies? Only when he realised that Soledad had already found a cart and was waiting for him to claim it did he finally skip off, promising to visit her later.
The cart delighted him as well.
"I love this one jiggly wheel that just doesn't want to go straight," he said as he pushed it diligently after Soledad. He put one foot on the lower bar, kicked off a few strides and glided down the aisle, clinging to the hand bar. That got a wide grin. "Ha! This thing is great! It makes me want to shop. Shop until I drop. I guess that is a thing? Man, I just realised this avatar doesn't have a name. I'm gonna give myself the epic name of Gavin Gunhold. Ha! Okay, so how do we find houseware things?" he then said as he put one foot down to slow the cart to a more respectable pace. He looked around himself in confusion. "Because wow, I just realised... this place is pretty huge. It's a lot bigger on the inside than I was expecting. Oh, towels! Will they lead us to blenders and eventually jeans?"
'Gavin', it seemed, was a lot more random than Miss Pauling was.
Is he a centuries-old alien robot warrior... or a five-year-old? The world may never know.
Towels were not their ultimate goal, but they were right next to the bathroom accessories section, which was right next to the kitchen appliances section. "Tada!" she announced, waving a hand dramatically like a presenter on a game show. "All the blenders you could possibly want, from super cheap to the ones developed by NASA to grind up meteors. I made that last part up, by the way."
She could have just grabbed the nearest blender and dumped it into the cart, but she kind of wanted to watch Smokescreen pick one out himself. He was bound to be all adorably enthusiastic about it. As advertised, the blenders ran from the twenty-dollar cheap versions to the Cadillacs of blenders. ...Come to think of it, were there any Cadillacs among the Autobots? Would they understand the reference?
Soledad peered at one of the expensive ones, painted fire-engine red and with more buttons than you probably needed to fly a space shuttle. "This is like the midlife crisis model," she muttered. "The sports car of blenders."
'Gavin' said nothing. He was speechless. He had simply fallen in love.
"Oh my god!" He went into a capering dance in front of the sleek red blender. Even sitting on the display shelf it looked as if it were racing at eighty miles an hour. At eighty-eight miles you would see some serious blending. "Oh! Oh, yes! This is the one! I am having a four million year old midlife crisis!"
He picked it up off the shelf and cradled it in his arms like a newborn. The cord dangled on the floor as he rocked it back and forth. "Oh! You! You are my number one Christmas boutique gift item! Oh! Oh my god. I can't believe I am going this nuts over a kitchen appliance."
Neither could the woman pushing a cart past them in the aisle. She gave them both a very strange look before moving on.
Gavin reverently put the red blender back on display. He hunted down a boxed version of it and set that into the cart instead. Then he looked around at Soledad and grinned brilliantly. "I kind of like that white one with the yellow stripe too- but let's face it, this blender looks amazing. It looks like it could blend the shit out of just about anything you put in it. I would test that theory myself, except I don't think someone like Agent Fowler would appreciate picking bits of shredded glass and metal out of his vodka smoothies. Also- it's red! It is clearly destined to be an Autobot blender."
He grabbed the handle of the cart again. "Okay! Blender: achieved! Oh, can we go look for some jeans for you now? I want to go check out the women's clothing section. I hear it is a mysterious and forbidden place."
Soledad tilted her head sardonically. "And here I was worried taking you to the women's clothes section would be awkward."
Truth be told, it wasn't the slice through the fabric that bothered Soledad - she'd worn ripped jeans all through middle school, hand-me-downs from her brother. It was the way it gaped open, showing off the scar Starscream had left behind. It was the bloodstain that'd never quite washed out. Maybe it was vain of her, but she couldn't stand wearing them anymore, and - what the hell. It was only money. She could always get more.
The women's clothing section was the largest in the store. Soledad sensibly steered Smokescreen away from the 'intimates' section, but she was more than happy to chatter about the different types of shirts, blouses, skirts, and - finally - pants for sale.
"You can wear these - they're called shorts - in the summertime. Well, some kids I know used to wear them year-round. But they were crazy. Shorts or these things - what they're called depends on who you ask. Capris, highwaters, whatever. They're pants that leave your ankles bare - see?" She held a pair to her waist to show where they ended on her legs, then put it back. "I don't wear those though. They're kinda... mom-ish."
Not her-mom-ish. Mami wore skirts or slacks exclusively. Soledad meant the moms in sitcoms and catalogs, the ones who were polished and thin and young and almost always white. Those were the only people who could wear capris and not look kind of dumpy and ridiculous.
"And here we go. Jean section!" Soledad spread her arms as if to embrace the bounty on display on the shelves and hangars. "From faded to dark wash, classic fit to low rise, taper to boot cut - even different colors." She picked a pair of bright orange jeans off the rack and waggled them at her companion. "What do you think? Not my color?" She grinned.
Gavin took one look at the orange jeans and cracked up.
"Oh my god!" he said. He grabbed a shelf to keep himself upright and laughed and laughed. With a big grin all over his freckled face he said, "Oh god, they're so orange, you could wear them and look like a... a creamsicle! I had no idea jeans came in different colours! I thought they were all just blue! Oh god. You know what you have to do."
Looking devious, he rubbed his hands and cackled. "Buy them, and then wear them to a meeting or something with Mister F-"
( - even though the chance of being surveyed by a Decepticon spy in a Las Vegas Walmart was fairly non-existent, it had occurred to Smokescreen that he would be wise to not press his luck by mentioning the name out loud any longer - )
"- and then just sit back and watch his reaction. I bet he'd say nothing. Just look stoic. Let's do it on his birthday. Oh! Let's do it on his birthday! Oh man. Let me see if I can find some crazy jeans now!"
He abandoned his beloved cart and darted into the rows of jeans. The grey hoodied head moved among the racks like a shark fin. It popped up again shortly after, and Gavin grinned and held up a pair of serious flares.
"How about these ones? They've got sparkles on the butt!"