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.
"Awesome," he said. "Okay! Hold on to your butts, butt holders. I'm gonna show you a cool trick."
He rose up to his full height. The desert floor dropped away beneath Sarita as she was lifted high above it, on a dark hand pitted with metal scars. The sun cast a dazzling nimbus around Deuce's head as he looked up into the sky.
Without warning, he leapt.
Load forces would flatten Sarita against his hand as he launched straight upright. And then, all at once her world transformed into a breathless dervish as the grey robot transformed around her, his body splitting apart into a wild gimbal of moving parts as Sarita was left to hover briefly in mid-air, for an instant suspended in the sky like a mote of dust on a sunbeam -
- and thump! She landed gently on the seat of the fighter jet, her hair and clothing tousled, even as the canopy sealed shut above her. The jet blasted into the climb, his engine roaring.
The power in Deuce's legs could be felt all through the air. He was like a silver god, leaping straight into the sun to challenge it — or perhaps flirt with it until it scorched his face. Sarita's mouth made a little "o", and she would have said something, if not for the metal storm. The whirl of grey and orange as the robot reassembled himself was like a religious experience.
All at once around her, and then, above her — that was the best way she could describe his being. Then she was safely, gently in his seat, and there was a moment of silence. Her eyes wide as saucers, she was blasted back into her seat by G-forces, held in place by a suddenly-appearing seatbelt. There was no breath that escaped from her as they rose higher and higher.
Then, when Deuce eased off of the climb and into flight, she gasped. The air she sucked in was like a fresh, mountain-top breath, the woman floundering for a moment as she grinned ear to ear. "Dios mio that was fucking amazing!" she screeched, whooping and hollering with laughter and adrenaline. Her Latin accent slid into place like perfect parking. "Dios mío! Oh mi dios de mierda! I want to do that again, I WANT TO DO THAT AGAIN!!"
She squealed, clamped her hands over her mouth, and lurched forward. There was excited laughter, and she was damn near about to burst into tears from the emotion. Sucking back a second wind, she leaned back in the seat, and let loose another bark.
"I...I can't believe you just did that. You are the shit, man."
"You're damn right I am," said the jet calmly, without a trace of modesty.
Then it gave an easy laugh and gently banked to the right. Its long grey nose tracked the distant coastline, the heading scale in the HUD ticking over as it swung north. Its airframe briefly shook as it climbed through the layer of convective turbulence that was capped by the puffy white cumulous clouds and then… the aircraft settled into the clean, smooth air above.
"In all seriousness though, I'm glad it didn't freak you out," said the jet. "Not, er… not everyone would appreciate that kind of unexpected shock. Can't say I blame them entirely. But I sorta had a hunch you might get a kick out of something like that. You seem pretty up to adventure. Rode all the worst, most terrifying roller-coasters at the parks, I'm guessing?"
"Not exactly," Sarita said, leaning back into the seat. She was still shaking a little from the rush. "To put in the bluntest terms I can: you're a jet. A living, sentient jet who's had thousands of years of universe-trotting experience who's willing to regale me with tales of your exploits. You just transformed in the middle of the air, landed me perfectly on your seat, and blasted off into the sky with the equivalent of a middle finger towards our lowly Earth tech.
"HOW do you not realize how amazing that is?!"
She leaned forward in her seat and grabbed the steering, hugging the yoke in lieu of his avatar or a finger. (And making sure not to mash her chest into what was equivalent to his face.) Releasing him and sitting back, the busker looked around, frowning as she "hmmed". "Where's that package you had, Deuce?" she asked, leaning over to look in the crevice between the seat and one wall. "I can keep it safe again for you, if you want."
The woman pulled her purse out of one pocket, fishing around for something. Moments later, a pair of bumper stickers — one showing off Jasper's sandstone formations, the other a distant shot of the town — were in her fingers.
"And I got these from someone in town. He's selling them to raise money for homeless kids in Vegas. Where do you want me to put them, D?"
Last Edit: May 10, 2015 13:43:50 GMT -5 by Deleted
He practically shouted it. The praise seemed to have gone to his head and made him a little giddy. He waggled his wings happily.
“Seriously, stick ’em wherever looks best, I don’t mind,” he said. “Just maybe don’t stick them anywhere the sun does not shine. Those are my no places.”
The jet laughed and levelled off. The bellow of his engine settled into a dull roar as it pulled its throttle back to establish a cruise power setting. Once again they were high above the clouds, which formed a thin and wispy layer several hundred feet beneath the canopy.
“Anyway, the package?” it said. “Oh, that! Oh, it’s okay, I’ve already stashed it somewhere. It’s a bit of a present for someone I picked up while abroad, so I put it in a safe place. I am a giant robot who figured out how to apply for a credit card, I have my resources!”
The jet said the last bit impishly. “But onwards! Canada! You travel up there a lot?”
She giggled a little when he wiggled his wings, but that was all she managed for the next several seconds. Deuce's mood (as usual) had gone from low and downplayed to manic and chipper, and he hastily bounced from subject to subject in the conversation. Sarita waited for her second wind, patient for Deuce to calm down a little.
“But onwards! Canada! You travel up there a lot?”
"Not really," Sarita said. "Other than a few detours, I've barely been past the border. I haven't really been in northern Washington, either — mostly the coast, the middle and near the Oregonian border. Spent some time in part of the redwoods, and that was fun."
The busker looked around the cockpit, still holding the stickers in her hands. "You know, I think I've stuck every bumper sticker we've collected so far in storage, somewhere," said the singer. "I mean, we've got a few from our eastern flyovers stuck on the sides, but I haven't done much with them. I'm going to have to fix that when we land."
Sarita looked out the cockpit windows, watching the thin trails of cirrus whip by. She said nothing, instead enjoying the sight of the sky around them. Deuce was free to pick up the banter with whatever came to mind, or say nothing at all. Many times, their flights had long stretches of nothing, Sarita occupying herself with skyscapes of all kinds.
About fifteen or twenty minutes after going quiet, she gave a thoughtful hum. Her eyes were on one of Deuce's wings, one finger tapping on the side of the cockpit.
The jet seemed happy to fill the silence with more companionable silence; during the twenty minutes it said nothing, preoccupied with flight. One of its MFDs gently scrolled through a black and white chart of their route, all lines and concentric circles.
Outside, the desert had already given way to the Rocky Mountains. Green and grey rock slopes rose steeply upwards into sharp tips of white snow. The range marched to the north, where much of the horizon was still faintly engulfed in a light haze. The air within the cockpit had chilled as well. It was cool inside, though not enough to be uncomfortable.
After another minute or two, the jet cleared its throat.
"You're being quiet," it remarked. Its voice was wary and good-humoured. "In my experience, that means a person is up to something. Penny for your thoughts? Wait a minute - we'll be in Canada shortly, and they no longer have a penny. Crap. I'll up my offer to a nickel, then."
That was odd. Had he noticed she had been thinking? It was only now that the singer noticed her tapping finger, it and its dark nail coming to rest. Looking back at Deuce's display, Sarita said, "Hm? Oh, not really, D. I'm just thinking — you fly a lot. You get beat up a lot, too, from the looks of it. I imagine several birds are to blame."
She chuckled.
"But I don't know how realistic that look is with Earth militaries. The U.S. is not an active war zone, thank God; they have plenty of time to shine and polish their jets. If we want to keep using the cover that you are an Air Force pilot, wouldn't it make sense that you look like you haven't been flying to Afghanistan and back?"
The busker shrugged.
"I mean, if we were forced to land in a warring or poverty-stricken country, I could see us not getting much attention. As it stands right now, though? We might start raising eyebrows. I think, at some point, we need to stop somewhere — maybe in this little valley, it's got a creek and a lake-ish pond — and tidy you up. Make it look like you've been on an airbase all day instead of getting shot at repeatedly.
"We should also check things like your wings and your ailerons when we land. I don't worry they'll snap off or anything, but it's like when I trim my nails or wash my hair: you don't realize how much crap gets stuck there until you take care of it. Psychologically, you'll also probably feel more energetic and 'freer', for lack of a better word, because you have a bit more mobility that was reduced by unseen dirt. Planes need a smooth surface for maximum maneuverability thanks to air physics, right? Something about keeping lift up?"
"Actually, it's not that big a deal," it said. "Yes, a clean aerofoil is more efficient at creating lift, but a bit of dust and some scratches isn't going to hurt it. Plus, the speed increase I'd get due a reduction in parasite drag thanks to a clean airframe would be miniscule considering that at a low-power cruise setting I'm already doing, like, six hundred miles an hour. An extra five on top of that won't change much. And besides."
The jet's voice grew playful. "I'm not THAT filthy or shot up. Planes get dirty while flying, it's just how it goes. I'd look worse if I were flying at lower altitudes all the time. Don't worry about things like ailerons or flaps or control surfaces. There's nothing up here to get caught in them that badly. If there were, we wouldn't be flying. The only time I get crap jammed in my joints is when I go running full bore through the trees or something. That definitely isn't fun."
It waggled its wings again. "If I get dirty though, I just go stand in the rain for a while. Never did go for the wash rack and polish thing. That seems to be a carbot conceit. Boy, some of those guys freak out of they have so much as a chip in their paintjob. Esh! I'm a working machine. No time for robot manicures!"
It paused. "You ever met any carbots? Hell, how many of my kind have you run across, now that I think about it?"
So he wasn't going to sit down and let her take off some of the dirt from his travels — fair enough. She wouldn't like some stranger putting their greasy mitts all over her (or Deuce) either. The singer leaned back, and let Deuce go on about carbots; when he asked her how many Cybertronians she'd met, Sarita tilted her head back. Her eyes were on the ceiling of the cockpit, staring out into passing sky as she thought.
"Including yourself, Layby's cohort, and Dart?" Sarita said. She nearly added the birdbot from before to that tally, but then came the memory of the femme's threat. Layby might have known about her, but he also wouldn't say anything, knowing Sarita had mentioned her in a moment of weakness. "Four. I have the suspicion there might be more, though; who knows how many are actually on Earth. I could have passed them by on the road, and would have never even noticed them."
The singer looked back down at the jet's dash.
"That's the entire point of your altmodes, isn't it? Camouflage. Chameleons turn the colour of the leaves around them, and you pick something that resembles an Earth vehicle. No chance for persecution or being hunted down, if you're careful. I envy that."
She looked out the window again.
"To walk on two legs, and then leap into the air and fly. You're pretty much untouchable up here, aren't you, D?"
Last Edit: May 17, 2015 15:24:35 GMT -5 by Deleted
It spoke breezily, without a trace of modesty. Without warning it winged over into a roll so smooth and coordinated that Sarita would not feel the lurching press of G-force in her gut. "Not one of those little eff-faced scrubs can touch me, either up here or down there. If only they knew! I'll live forever. Ffft."
It laughed and rolled level again, its wingtips perfectly aligned over each horizon.
"So tell me about your meeting with Dart," it said. Its voice rang with curiosity. "What's the story behind that? What was she doing? How did you two bump heads, exactly? She's usually so careful about disturbing people, it amazes me she revealed herself to a human."
The roll startled her. She had not felt it coming, only realizing what was going on when the dash tipped to the side. She gave a little, "Oop!" of surprise, reflexively clutching for the seat, fingers digging as her black braids fell. Blinking once, then twice, the singer laughed along with Deuce, letting go of the seat as he righted himself.
"And this is one of the reasons why I like travelling with you," Sarita said, grinning ear to ear. She gave the side of the cockpit another fond pat, halting when Deuce asked how, exactly, she met Dart. The singer pulled her hand back, putting it in her lap and looking sheepish.
"...Really stupid situation, honestly," Sarita said. "I stopped to help a couple on the side of the road. As it turned out, they were meth-heads or crack dealers, or something — they wanted to steal my car. They jumped me, hit me over the head with a crowbar, and took off with Sheila. I think they grabbed my keys off the ground, or I left them in the ignition, or something stupid like that."
She rubbed her face towards the end, pinching the bridge of her nose. Her face had turned a slight shade of dark red.
"Anyways, I started walking back into town on foot. Dart stopped, asked if I needed a ride, and I told her I need to find a police station. She seemed rather worried about me, and we shot the bull and talked for a bit. She's nice, Deuce — really nice. There's something about her that...I dunno, kind of takes you down from the sort of angry high I was running on. She was great at getting my mind off of things until I got to the station, when I started to lose it again. God, I must have looked like an idiot."
She let go of her face, and looked back up at the dash.
"But things worked out in the end. Sheila was found not too long after — Bonnie and Clyde there weren't the smartest of crooks — and Dart (who was calling herself 'Rachel' at that point) got an address from me for courier work. I really hate not paying back a good deed, and it was the only thing she wouldn't refuse from me for stopping in the first place.
"Now that I know who she really is, I feel like I owe her a ton more. Hence, another one of the reasons why I'm now working with you: I want you to find your friend. She probably misses you too, right? Matter of fact, how did you two get separated?"
"Well, that's a bit of a tale," it said. "I guess to make a long story short, she and her boss got called back to the States. We were all in Australia before this. I followed across the ocean shortly after."
It sighed, its HUD flickering. "But trying to find one sports car in the US is a bit like trying to find a needle in a haystack. So, I keep looking. Frankly I'm amazed you ran across her. She's pretty subdued - keeps a low radar profile, so to speak. It seems like a stroke of luck that you did, and that I encountered you shortly after. It must be fate! Ha!"
With a little bob the jet weaved back and forth, its nose perfectly aligned on the horizon.
"Also, yes, you're right, she is a very nice person," it said. Unmistakeable fondness rang in its voice as it said, "She's just the sort who would help out a human in need. I'm glad that everything worked out for you in the end. And she was calling herself Rachel at the time? Oh my god."
Talking about Dart seemed to shave off his bravado. Every time the subject was brought up, he either betrayed himself with reminiscing, or tried to speed through the conversation. The only time he wasn't awkward was when he talked about fate, and how it must have brought him to meet Sarita.
Something stirred in the woman's gut. There was something to her smile for an instant, something that weighted it, but it was gone just as quickly. She giggled when Deuce cooed over the Rachel comment, and said, "That some kind of in-joke between you two, my dashing Falcon?"
Leaning towards the HUD, the singer tilted her head, trying to make sense of the various lines, glyphs and figures that indicated where they were going. "How much further to the valley, you think? I'm pretty sure we passed the border at some point. Which is a shame, because I wanted to wave my middle finger at it."
"Yus, we flew over it about a minute ago," said the jet. "So if you want to get in a two-fingered salute, there is still a window of opportunity!"
The rest of the flight passed swiftly. At a little over six hundred miles an hour, in what the jet described as an 'easy cruise', they crossed the miles into the Rocky Mountains in good time.
To the west lay the Pacific Ocean. To the east were the Rockies, vast and grey, their highest peaks capped in snow. At that altitude Sarita would be able to see the dense clouds that piled up on the west side of the mountains, where the warm air mass from the Pacific was blown against the rock, lifted, and cooled to the point of condensation. Rivers of white cap cloud threaded along the winding canyons below. Now and then she would be able to catch a glimpse of glinting blue water through gaps in the cloud, where lakes and streams cut cold trails through the rock.
The jet angled its wings as it wove back and forth to get its bearings.
"Welp!" it said. "My memory is a little rusty, but I do believe that is Kamloops behind us, at about our five o'clock. That would put Prince George off our nose. Yeah, I recognise that north-south valley. Where do we go from here? Should take less than ten minutes to get where we need to go, tops. Ah, the advantages of not having to follow roads, or even the terrain."