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.
Red Alert made no attempt whatsoever to hide the fact that he was watching Roulette as she walked out of the room. She already knew he wasn’t keen on letting her out of his sight, after all, so there would be little point in pretending he wasn’t watching her like a hawk. He sincerely doubted she had any ill-intentions, but he felt compelled to see her out of the room, just in case. His optics followed her all away across the room until she disappeared from sight, at which point he finally turned his attention back to Cleaver.
Security. Great. They were finally back on a topic he actually cared to speak about. “A tour is fine.” He replied, just a little too quickly.
If he was going to be checking over the base, he’d prefer to do it hands on. The idea of going someplace quiet to discuss matters sounded a little too much like making small-talk while working for his tastes. If they were going to talk, they could just as well do it while he was examining things and thus not obligated to hold eye-contact.
“Fortress’ report cued me in on the basics.” General quality of the systems, the overall defensibility of the base, the likelihood there would be a serious breach on the Autobot’s end of things. Fortress Maximus had done a good job, he knew what he was doing.
As much as he trusted the other mech’s judgement was sound, however, Red Alert still felt the need to do a double-check. Just in case something was overlooked. Primus knew until he saw things with his own optics, the uncertainty would drive him up the slagging wall.
Cleaver hummed assent, rotors flexing and resettling into a smooth line between her shoulders. The dome that housed her alt mode's transmission and rotor mast sat at the apex, beneath her neck. It gave a little rattle, tension settling, as the helo led them off.
"Where would you like to start?" Their direction across the Atrium was naturally pointed at the Medbay, though Cleaver doubted Red Alert would hold the area as a high priority. More likely he would want to see what had become of the deeper mining tunnels, larger caverns and mechanics that kept the mine comfortably habitable. "He forwarded on the old schematics, I take it?"
Layby had given Maximus the plans that had been supplied by the Decepticons quite happily, content that both sides possess the same knowledge. Inaccurate as it now was.
Cleaver was right in her assumption. While Red Alert did indeed consider the medbay to be a priority, it was not very high on his list. He cared more about the base’s source of power, the generators and other mechanical odds and ends which the neutral’s security network relied on to function. Take out the power to those systems, and one may as well not have them at all. Making sure the generators were stable and defended was nearly as important as making sure the groundbridge didn’t keep an extended record of the coordinates from which outsiders bridged in. Primus forbid anyone be able to trace the Autobots back to their home base.
“I’d like to take a look down in the lower levels, if you wouldn’t mind.” He replied as he fell into step behind the medic.
He nodded absently in response to her second question, making another noncommittal sound in the back of his throat as his attention once again strayed to the walls around them. He couldn’t help himself: habit took over, and he found himself making plans that would never be acted upon, taking imaginary cameras and sensors in strategic locations, and wherever else he felt they would be of use. What could he say? He was a creature of habit.
Their path in the tunnels was illuminated by high voltage beams along the ceiling and strips of light embedded along the floor, illuminating the lazy swirl of dust motes that rose with each heavy tread. Here the walls had been sanded back – not quite smooth, still pock-marked with gaps where the rock had crumbled or rolled away, but fit enough for traffic to the Medbay and habited rooms. Crude, but habitable.
As they ventured further down the tunnel it was clear that there was still work to be done. The walls were rough-hewn, the light was sufficient only to see the next step as dirt and debris choked the strips on the floor. They glowed like embers, twisting strange shadows behind rocks and on the odd scattering of tools left behind.
At the end was a wide lift, used by miners to bring up large carts of energon and metal ores. Cleaver entered the passcode, and the lift screamed into life with the protest of inner workings.
Cleaver had to shout to even hear herself over the din. “Sorry about the noise. Dirt’s still getting into the gears somehow.”
She made a mental addition to their to-do list, and sighed when she saw the new items noted since her last check. If it wasn’t one thing with this base, it was another. With the proliferation of organic contaminants on this planet much of their equipment required heroic amounts of time and effort spent on cleaning and maintenance. This would have been no problem for a fully-staffed mining operation, but when there were less than ten regular occupants at last count, there was simply no way to get this done.
When the machine had warmed up and muted down to the odd discordant clunk, Cleaver regarded the Autobot’s Chief of Security again. “What would you like to see first?”
Though he had no intention of letting this be known, Red Alert did not like tunnels, caves, and other such poorly lit places. He always felt uneasy in places where shadows loomed and light was scarce, though not because he had an irrational fear of the dark or anything of the kind. He simply had a deeply rooted need to know what was going on, to be aware of his surroundings and everything within them. In places such as this, where even with his modified optics he could scarcely make out anything past a few feet in front of him, he was surrounded by the unknown---by variables, potential risks he couldn’t calculate ahead of time. However, that was not what bothered him most. What truly bothered him about places like this, the thing that crawled under his plates and made his mouth twitch in distaste, was the simple fact that he knew what tended to happen when his mind was left to fill in the blank spaces in the darkness.
He would take a step, and wonder if the walls up ahead were sturdy, or perhaps cracked and crumbling, just waiting to collapse, then once they stepped into the light and the darkness was cleared away, he would mentally chastised himself for worrying over nothing. He knew better. Logically, Cleaver would not lead him and herself down a tunnel that was one wrong move away from collapse. He knew that thinking otherwise was just nonsensical.
But that didn’t help the feeling go away. Recognizing that his thoughts were (potentially) irrational or overblown did nothing to dissuade the little gut instinct chanting “what if?” in the back of his mind. It just made him acutely aware that he was either going to be right, which was terrible, or he was going to have his worries debunked, which would make him feel like an ass, but at least he wasn’t right. Primus forbid he was right about a even quarter of the things that worried him. That would just be a terrible world to live in, and Red Alert was quite frankly glad that world existed only in the darker recesses of his mind and not in reality.
As they traveled through the tunnel, Red Alert made a point of standing a step behind Cleaver as opposed to directly beside her, so that she would not be bothered by his optics flashing sporadically as they constantly recalibrated themselves to the differing levels of light. When they finally reached the end of the tunnel and arrived at the lift, Red Alert had only a few moments of blissful silence to enjoy before his audios were pierced by the sound of wailing mechanics. He couldn’t help hiss slightly at the god awful noise, his head jerking to the side out of reflex, as if being a few centimeters away would somehow make the sound less unbearable. Cleaver’s shouted apology did not help matters whatsoever, but he appreciated the sentiment behind her words (as grating on his sensitive audials as they were.)
“--The generators.” He replied, with only a slight grimace. “We can cover the lowest levels then work our way back up from there.”
Though, Primus, was he not looking forward to using the lift.
Cleaver nodded. Stepping inside, she set the sub-level in the control pad and, with a juddering start, the lift settled into a smooth descent.
The trip to the sublevels was mercifully shorter than the medic remembered. Not that Cleaver found the amicable silence an awkward interlude. From her first impressions of him, Red Alert was a polite and highly professional mech though he did not seem to be overly taken with small talk, which suited her just fine. She was, however, concerned with how the lift was operating today. Cleaver could hope that the Autobot’s Chief of Security would see it fit to include functional lifts in their assessment, but for Red Alert’s current peace of mind it would be best to not broach that subject until later.
Once the heart of the energon mining effort, this lower level was essentially a massively excavated pit – the hollow shell of an enormous compact crystal formation before it had been gutted and picked bare. The space was absolutely cavernous, with darkness hiding the true sense of scale as lighting was restricted along the most essential paths. Trickles of water could be heard echoing all around them.
“This way,” she said, indicating the path directly before them. After a few minutes they’d reached the generator room. Manipulating the controls on the panel stand, the heavy-set doors slid open. Lights flickered inside, before the room was illuminated. Cleaver shuttered her optics minutely against the glare, which was much stronger than the floor and wall strips that led them here.
She gave Red Alert a quick rundown on the measures they had. “The system hasn’t been changed much from what the previous occupants had. Passcode protected from the outside panel here, emergency door release on the inside in case any mech gets stuck in there. Two layers of blast-proof doors: Layby said they could stand a fair beating. Got fire extinguishing gels out here – “ She indicated the dull yellow box mounted on the right side. “ – and inside the room itself.”