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.
His mouth twitched. The surgeon threw back his head and howled with laughter. It was not a pleasant laugh, but harsh and abrasive. Axon slapped his knee in mirth.
"Oh lordy!" he choked. "If you want to worry about someone hurting Dart, then worry about Pyrotech instead, not me. God almighty."
He pretended to wipe an optic as he straightened up and chuckled. "Man! You Cons. No, I'm not going to hurt Dart. I want to dope slap her upside the head now and then, but no, hurting Dart is not on my agenda. She's an okay kid. And among other things, hurting Dart would upset a friend of mine, and I don't want to listen to his bitching for the next two million years."
He grinned evilly. "You're rather familiar with this friend, in fact. You've met him. Twice. Ha! Anyway. Ready to go?"
She almost retorted something snide to him. The words were there, on the very edge of her vox, futzing up her throat with mild static. She wanted to say something but...didn't. Why should she? She didn't have to prove herself to anyone much less some assholes who had forced her into a situation she didn't even want to be in in the first place.
If she was going to be honest with herself, and she tried to be as often as she could, she was embarrassed. She'd not handled herself well at all, or held herself to any set standard she had made. At every moment she'd been sidetracked or railroaded by events that were just far enough out of her element to make her know that she was useless as ever. And that was the rub, wasn't it? She was never smart enough, never fast enough, never important enough to suit herself. Being laughed at by a mech who didn't even like her certainly didn't help.
Rather abruptly, all the fight drained out of her and she found she was too tired to do this anymore. What, really, was the point of fussing over others? What the hell had she been thinking? Dart was alive by her own merit and she didn't need someone else's fussing to stay that way. If she was involved with these assholes, was she even worth worrying about?
I should never step out of my comfort zone. This is why. I don't need anyone else and I never have.
She'd worry about the mysterious other mech she'd met not once, but twice, but...oh, what was the point? The more she shifted to ennui, the better she felt over all. Apathy was a comforting blanket to pull tight around herself. Everything made sense when she didn't care about the outside and focused inward.
As she'd formed this shift in mentality, her body had relaxed to a less rigid stance. Her features were perfectly uniform and bland, optics focusing on nothing just past the mech and to the right. She was looking at him but wasn't looking at him. Even the foreign wings on her back tilted downward.
Just send me back so I can pick up the pieces again.
Axon only looked amused at her show of indifference.
"Guess that means 'yes'," he said.
He sat up straight and threw back the last of his drink. Then he crushed the flask on his forehead before negligently tossing it aside.
"All right, girl, sit tight," he said. "This should just take a second. This is Soma's program - I'm just backdooring it. I should be able to reset and cut the connection without frying too many of your minor nodes. If you experience any headaches upon returning to full consciousness back in your physical body I probably wouldn't worry too much about it. Unless they are accompanied by seizures. Then I would really worry about it."
Axon touched two fingers to the side of his helm and frowned.
All at once the room pixellated with static as Roulette's vision fell out of sync. The sound of Axon's voice distorted painfully in her audials, as if it were severely overmodulated.
"Remember," it said. "Give Dart my message. You want to know anything more about Soma and what his plans are, you let Dart know what I told you. No one else. I'll know."
Roulette's personally universe shut off.
And then switched back on.
Dust stirred around her. The earth was hot beneath her frame, baking quietly under the full glare of the sun. Heat shimmered up from the dry, sandy soil. From her line of sight where she lay on the ground on her side she would be able to make out one of the rusted ship hulks nearby. A small tan snake was coiled in the shade beneath its brow, its blunt nose resting on its scaly hide.
The signal was gone. The only sign that anything had ever been there were the large footprints trampled into the sand around the ship, and around her prone body.
No one else. I'll know.............................. ............. I'll know. know....
The lingering threat (warning?) rang in her audios and across her memory in an irritating echo as her optics onlined and focused on the particulates lining so neatly in front of her face. Sand. Bits of wood fiber and vegetation. Location and reality started to compete with the ache in her head. Slowly, with the care of someone with a pounding head could only achieve, she pushed herself up on onto her elbows. There was a moment of shifting vertigo as her mind tried to orient itself in a foreign body, truly convinced she should be accounting for the weight of wings on her back. But it passed easily enough. If only the processor splitting pain would piss off, she'd be fine.
Well, no, she wasn't fine. She was far from fine and she couldn't even begin to figure out what her next step was. The warning was less of a concern to her. Who gave a slag if he knew? Her life was shadowed by Shockwave, so as threats went, they were going to have to step up their game or get in line.
Finally sitting on her folded legs, she started to feel more like herself but was no less, well, upset. She felt violated by the odd attack but it was too maudlin to indulge into a self pity party. Was she mad? Sort of? Maybe? Was she going to tell Dart? Possibly? One truth she could admit to herself was that she didn't want to do this. She didn't want to think about what had happened right then and there.
Eying the tracks, the snake, the stupid hulk of rusting ships, she massaged at the lines in her neck and willed the pounding ache away. That, actually, worried her far more than anything else. She was going to need a medic to run a fine tooth comb over her and she sure as hell wasn't going to make an appointment with Doc Knock. His skill wasn't in question but his blabber mouth sure was.
One thing was certain, she couldn't get Shockwave involved just yet. She wasn't naive enough to think she could keep anything away from him forever but if she could just delay the inevitable, perhaps she wouldn't end up on his table with her helm being split open so he could take a little peek. A shudder vibrated her armor plates enough to irritate the snake. It slithered away from its resting place to find a quieter basking spot.
Ache notwithstanding, Roulette had a game plan orienting as she forced herself to get up. First, she would finish what Shockwave had sent her to do. Then, she would write a report, of which she was already inscribing in that aching mind of hers as she headed toward the sensor Shockwave had placed. Well...two reports. One for Shockwave, detailing the trip and what had made the sensor malfunction. (Turns out a gull nest in the wrong position could hamper technology.) The other report was for Soundwave.
She was going to need every good grace he could grant her for a free pass to the DMZ. However, in light of the ah, particulars of recent events, she didn't think that was going to be a problem. As for Dart...well, she'd see.
The headache was steady, but at least it was manageable. Despite Axon's ominous words any self-diagnostics she ran would show no sign of scarring or mental trauma to the delicate connections that made up her neural net. Of course, that always evoked the question: was a damaged process capable of detecting its own faulty components?
The desert gave no answer. Only silence, sun and light, and a fine blowing dust.
Roulette was alone at last.
While thousands of miles away, a signal began to gently ping from the slime at the bottom of a dark Scottish lake.
((OOC we can wrap here, unless there is anything you would like to add! :3))