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.
Ears ringing and her balance thrown off by the shot fired, Thana dropped off of the side of the truck and nearly went to her knees on the concrete. Her calves stung and dully dribbled blood down her legs to her boots. Her gaze wasn't worrying over the shrapnel wounds but was turned toward the enemy. She'd almost dared to hope the shot had killed the son of a bitch but against all logic, he rose to his knees. Staggered as he was, she didn't foresee them winning this battle.
If only the other one hadn't been there...they could have taken the silver one out. If only.
Disappointed at the weapon's performance, Thana pushed herself away from the truck and fled through the back of the building. Now was the time to run. She didn't dare risk fleeing topside. Not when such as attack had stirred up the enemy. Their attacks would be sloppy, panicked, but now fueled by anger. It would only take one shot to destroy a vehicle and her in it.
She waited in the doorway, measuring scant seconds until she could move undetected from one building to the other. This building was no longer viable. She knew that in the marrow of her bones. They would attack and destroy the place, razing it to the ground in retaliation. She knew this, because it was an action she would take if attacked in such a way.
He would raze it; he would drown it in the blood of its humans. He would set fire to their world and watch them until they were cinders. Hard as it could be to even notice Soundwave's field when around the background noise of other mechs, or even the 'Nemesis', rage, profound and acid, turned into a swirling maelstrom.
It was however, the only immediate expression of it. He knew all too well that he could not afford to express it otherwise. Not yet.
In the blink of an eye his tentacles whipped out and latched onto the ATV he'd ignored just a moment ago; the gun's shot had, if nothing else, pinpointed its location and cleared a perfect line-of-sight.
Soundwave saw a flicker of motion there. A moment later the ATV flew like a scythe through the smoke-and-dust-filled air, hard enough to leave in its wake the whoomping sound only something going that fast can make as it cuts the air itself.
Even as he slid down into the crater Megatron had dug, he was sending instructions directly to Laserbeak and the Vehicons. His cassette was to find that last truck and separate the trailer from its cab by means of its fuel tank; he was to leave no survivors. Two of the Vehicons were to stay with the transport stalled at the gates, one to provide cover and the other to open the thing like a tin can and either get whatever was inside, or set it on fire. As promptly as yesterday.
The last three were to secure. that. Primus-be-damned. weapon. Soundwave didn't know what it had done but he knew the best chance to reverse its effects, wherever they might have been, would come all the quicker with an understanding of what they'd been to begin with. And he did not want to leave it in human hands. He would deal with the blueprints for it as soon as he knew what he was looking for in the vast informational ether of the planet.
That his communications were delivered directly in glyph format should not detract from their urgency. Each and every one bore the most urgent glyph that could be attached to them and, for an incredibly rarity, not his simple ID glyph but his official one, loaded with the undertones of his command and seniority. Equally charged was the terse communique he boosted to the medical staff on the 'Nemesis' through his ever-open remote channels with the ship.
Soundwave rushed to Megatron's side. It was entirely possible that the proximity would get him batted aside - his liege could very well react on instinct to such proximity. But he had not gotten back up. Nothing else could have told Soundwave something had gone terribly wrong; that single lack screamed it. He sent a query glyph over comm, his facial screen lit up with the same query. If Megatron allowed it, Soundwave would get him on his pedes but first he had to know that he could get up at all. He didn't need to be a medic to see how bad the outer damage was, and to guess that the internal damage was bound to be worse: he could see it in Megatron's expression. Answer me, slag you, was his driving thought, even as it occurred to him that Megatron might not be able to do so.
Well, it was even more likely to get him punched away, and that was never a pleasant proposition, but Soundwave was not going to sit and guess as to the warlord's status. Even as he tried to physically reach for Megatron, his tentacles whipped around, looking for communication ports.
<<OOC: Warnings for completely fudged techno and psycho babble>>
Soundwave had approached on his right side, in clear view of Megatron's functioning optic. However the warlord was staving off stasis and grinding through a slew of error messages and system reroutes. And then there was the pain.
His processor was fighting with both physical and software measures to isolate the damage done by the chemical weapon and electrical shorts, and to compensate with what was left. Whole swathes of subroutines, secondary and tertiary processes and half his memory core were deactivated and partitioned.
His optical sensors were low on the list of priorities.
//Systems check ... Connecting ... Completed.//
//Analyzing Systems:// //HUD online// //Self repair online - 100% functionality// //Motor Function enabled - 86% functionality// //Sensor net and navigation enabled - 41% functionality// //Communications - hardline functionality only// ...
The list scrolled on and on, with most of the numbers going down as the seconds passed. Blessed relief when his remaining optic stuttered back online was shortlived when Megatron saw the state of his surroundings, and the proximity of a multi-limbed and faceless mech to his right.
Megatron paused, hand partially raised. He did not recognize this mech, but he was not immediately attacked, and there was a definite air of protective concern. He watched his HUD.
TMA was an algorithm that ran invisibly to measure the degree to which an individual was trustworthy, conveying the result as noninvasive, noncognitive feeling. To analyse trust metrics, both objectively and subjectively, the algorithm consolidated trust values from several sources including memory files and known facts about individuals, and contextualised them with situation, potential outcomes and goals.
There were too many conflicting glitches and damaged pathways for intuition to function. His processor was reworking itself to a functional level, retreating to older settings and more rudimentary programmings. Transformation and adaptation - integral Cybertronian traits.
//Compensating// //Compensating//
His memory files were intact, but not automatically accessible. Megatron found he had to manually set the files to decode - a tedious and time-consuming task that subroutines like the TMA eliminated the need for. It was like reading a datapad.
The algorithm couldn't apply subjective probability in this condition, but it had enough to function with. The best output that his Trust Algorithm Matrix could produce was a grossly simplified scale, primarily used by non-sentient automated security systems. The attribution of values to levels of trust was crude and cold, but it worked, and it was better than not knowing if he could trust this mech at all.
//Designation: Soundwave// //(TMA)50/50-A// //Decepticon Third in Command// //Carrier model//
Megatron grasped the tentacle and pulled the data pins to his thoracic port. He dropped his firewalls to eliminate the need for a medical override, granting Soundwave full access to his compromised systems.
Over the hardline connection, he ordered, ::Retreat::
The concussive shock from the thrown ATV impacting the building (and heavy vehicle therein) was enough to force Thana out of the doorway and into the street. She was expecting a form of retaliation and rolled, loose-limbed and agile. But the force of the impact rattled her already aching head enough to send the migraine jolting through her eyes and spots danced before her eyes.
A scant few seconds were wasted as she oriented herself and pushed up from the tarmac. Her calves were a forgotten ache to the new agony in her temple and she clenched her teeth as she limped for the building, all but throwing herself into the doorway of the HQ building. And none too soon. Gunfire pockmarked the wall beside her as she just cleared the entrance. She didn't stop to see who or what had fired at her. Only limped for the stairwell, pausing long enough to pull the mask off of her face and reach for the short range radio. Keeping communication silent at this moment was moot. Everything was a loss here and the only items left to salvage were personnel.
"Ladybird, ladybird." With those coded words said to all MECH persons still in the area, she dropped the useless tech and made for the exit, leading a pebbling trail of blood every few steps.
For an infinitesimal moment Soundwave knew only relief that Megatron was present enough to issue orders. The order was logical, to boot, so Megatron was not just aware, but rational.
The rest of it was all bad news, and it took a hefty measure of his famous self-control not to reel, both physically and mentally, at the sheer amount of damage that he was being shown. Some part of him wanted to, immediately and completely, launch into a full repair effort, simply because the damage was both devastating and offensive.
It should not be there; it should not have happened. Not to Megatron, not on the simplest of sweep-and-clean missions.
Not from a human.
Megatron's own coding, in any case, had been boosted and boosted again across the many vorns of war. It would have been too easy to be rid of the Decepticon commander if only his frame, not his mind, had been protected from damage and assassinations. Soundwave merely slipped in once the firewalls had been dropped and stepped in wherever the systems were having trouble coping automatically. If no efficient connection could be found between partitions, he suggested one; if a query was caught in a loop demanding a response from a sector that could not provide it, he gently scooted it along. Wherever a subroutine was ailing along at quarter-speed he cleared the shattered code debris around it and chivvied it along. Wherever pieces could be obviously drawn together, the better to try and gravitate towards a gradually cohesive whole, he pushed them along with the lightest of touches.
It was the most subtle, refined and ghostly of assistance. Soundwave didn't dare do anymore without drawing his attention away from other matters, and those matters were very much bound to obedience of Megatron's one order.
A drawn-out sound of rending metal, followed by something heavy bouncing away into the dark, preceded a comm. from the group of three Vehicons. ::We have the weapon, sir.::
And about time, Soundwave thought. He could not see the fireball, but he had already received Laserbeak's report as to the fate of the last transport; his cassette was flying back to their site as fast as his thrusters could take him. The two Vehicons who'd been dealing with the vehicle stalled at the gate were making haste towards him, and he --
"Ladybird, ladybird."
Soundwave's helm rose briefly, like a hound scenting the fox after a long hunt. The signal was ragged, a witness to the damage done to the MECH equipment all around them. The meaning was left to anyone's guess. But it was a voice. It was sound sourced on the enemy.
In a moment Soundwave recorded everything about the brief communication, beginning with frequency, and adding such obscure things as electromagnetic position. He would take that sound, that one word twice spoken. He would use it to find them. He would give it back to them gladly before he saw everything they were left in ruins.
His face-plate blinked away from the spiky wave of the recording as the Vehicons closed in on their position. Instead formation commands flashed through it: they were to form a double phalanx between Megatron and himself, with those carrying nothing on the first row. He gave them just enough time to receive and acknowledge the orders before he recalled the ground-bridge equations he'd left prepped for precisely this kind of situation.
Laserbeak launched down at him from the haze-laden sky and docked, neatly avoiding his partner's cables as the noiseless vortex of the bridge opened. The 3IC was focused on trying to dull the damage and pain feedback, as well as trying to make sure that Megatron could both get on his feet and see where he was going. None of them could carry their liege and watch their back simultaneously; he was too damn big.
Soundwave's faceless helm pivoted slowly: smoke and licking fire rose from most of the structures; only scattered gunfire chased after them. MECH had ceded the ground entirely, and left it a loss; in the most technical sense of the word, the mission had been accomplished.
It was not enough. Not for the price that had been paid. He'd have to ensure that, in future encounters, that would change.
[[Exit the Angry Butler, stage left.]]
Last Edit: Aug 20, 2014 23:07:58 GMT -5 by Deleted