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.
Bandit shifted his gaze toward the horizon, thoughtfully. Just what haveyou been involved in while I was gone, Dart, he mused to himself.
He leveled his green optics over toward her. "So... why do you ask, then? That's the million credit question, yeah? Had a run-in with them... or someone you knows did. You sound unsure, so it's probably not your Decepticons doing it."
Bandit paced a bit, working it through. "But your Decepticon bunch has bloody Megatron. So if it's the 'cons, it's some shadow spook show. Could be the Autobots, but it doesn't sound like you know for sure. A neutral faction, snatching up Cybertronians and turning them into, what, Murder-Slaves or something?"
As the mech started to walk back and forth, Dart watched him. She tilted her head and rubbed the side of her hand against her nose, as if she was scrubbing at an itch.
"Million and one credit question," Dart admitted with a small, unsure smile. "I'm asking because to be honest, you've seen a lot around the galaxy, and Cybertron, and well, I haven't."
The courier reached up a hand and tapped the side of her helm lightly with a fingertip. "I simply don't have the underpinning to know how much it's known or even heard of outside of the folks I'm with, but... yeah. I did. I did. I've had a few run ins with them now. It's bad. Really bad. I'm still dealing with them, and no, it's- well, it's not the Decepticons, and er- right now I don't think anyone knows where Megatron is, but... um, that's a story for later. Promise.
And it's certainly not neutrals."
Dart snorted slightly, as if in firm emphasis of this fact.
"It's the Autobots," she said, her voice low. "I mean, they're not these Autobots." She shifted her weight and motioned to some distant point on the horizon. "Not the ones here on Earth. I don't think so anyway, and yeah, there's even Outliers, and no doubt a few murder slaves, ugh."
A look of worry and concern darkened her blue optics.
"But most of them are diplomats, business folks, or were involved with security work back on Cybertron, and even other planets before and during the war."
Bandit nodded, thoughtfully. "It's known. It's one of those things that everyone... assumes is happening, even if they don't have actual evidence. Corrupt organizations doing corrupt things, you know? And any organization that's big enough, that's been around long enough, is going to be at least a little corrupt."
"In the Autobot's case -- and the Decepticons -- the various factions are so scattered that the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing. In some cases they've even entirely forgotten they have a right hand."
The spoiler across the back of Dart's shoulders pricked up again at his question.
"My friend the ex-camera," she said. "He's been on Earth here for a while, but he's also had contact with folks back on Cybertron. The other folks are using a method to uh, get into people's heads."
"Not just getting into them though - altering them. Changing their thoughts, their reactions, their whole personality. I know, it sounds like a bad Earth movie," she admitted. "Invasion of the Body Snatchers and all that but that's pretty much a bit of what's going on. The rest of it is, uh, worse. Like I said, they were a group of Autobots that were left behind on Cybertron. See, originally all of this started out with I think pretty good intentions in mind. Mostly."
Like all technology, huh?" she said with a lopsided smile.
Then she hesitated. "The short of it? These Autobots created something like- like a world of holograms and combined it with a way to communicate over vast distances through using tiny wormholes."
"I got tangled up because my friend asked me to help him rescue an Autobot out of their clutches before they basically got hold of him and then had access to the Autobot base here on Earth. I think that's what they were after anyway. Best guess."
"Hmm. So the fact that you're telling me all this means that they didn't get their hooks into you, since you haven't tried to murder me yet. ... yet." Bandit cocked his head and studied Dart. "Well, if you do try to kill me, no hard feelings. You wouldn't even be the first friend who's tried to kill me."
He gave a shrug, his cloak bunching around his shoulders. "Just kidding. What you're saying is existentially terrifying. I can't say I have heard of this particular spook-show. Are you looking for them, or trying to avoid them?"
Dart lifted her hand and scrubbed at her nose. A streak of dirt and dust went across her silver metal.
"Aw, I'd have hard feelings about myself if I tried to kill you," she told him.
She had no doubt that Bandit knew far more about badly-ending relationships than she could ever know. Like, yes, she'd had a few folks she'd considered friends throw her under the bus but really only one person she'd considered a friend had tried to kill her. Well, not so much kill her as send her off with someone who lost folks under their command on a regular basis, so...
"But I'm a Decepticon. The guy who is in charge? He doesn't like Decepticons at all. He doesn't appear to have taken any of them to use for this situation. Just Autobots, and a few neutrals."
A soft puff of air escaped her as she looked over at him. "As for me, it's a little of both. I'm trying to avoid them because man, they do not like me, not in the slightest - but I'm also trying to uh, tell folks I know who have outstanding skills that might make them an interesting target. They- they like folks with skills and abilities and who can think out of the box. Which is weird I guess when they're trying to control your brain, but that's what it is. So you need to be careful. I think- no, I know that they'd find you valuable."
"Hmm. I am both complimented and terrified appropriately. I'll keep my optics open. I've pretty much made an eons-long career out of it, I don't plan to let it slide now."
Bandit shrugged. It didn't really surprise him that the Autobots got up to some shady stuff, and it was one of the reasons he tried to give both factions -- and the war -- wide birth. The left hand didn't know what the right was doing. And in fact, sometimes the left hand didn't even know that the right hand existed anymore. Or that it ever even had a right hand.
The war had been going on for so long that it was refracted like a prism, or a reflection in a broken mirror: countless shadows, reflections, facets, and shades of the war raged across space. There's a reason that Cybertronians were largely unwelcome across the civilized universe -- all you needed was one Autobot, and one Decepticon, and bammo, you had an instant war in your backyard.
Almost every intelligent species and civilization had some version of the Adversary, some preternatural entity that was the Source of all Evils -- Earth had the Devil, Zycon IV had The Big Head With All The Eyes, that one village on Andrax Prime had Chauncey Pilkington. Cybertronians had Unicron, but Bandit wondered if the war itself -- this unceasing conflict that took on multiple shapes and sizes, spread like scraplets and the Rust Plague, and could flourish almost anywhere Cybertronians plopped themselves down -- was the true Adversary for Cybertronians.
The courier had lifted her nose up into the wind moving up the high ridge. The distant lights of Vegas glittered, a ribbon of color that moved like a river, constantly flickering and changing. She watched them for a moment as he spoke.
Terrified and complimented seemed like the perfect choice of words for the situation. It was a compliment that you had the skills that would attract someone like Soma, she supposed. Yet what happened to you if they took you in for that attraction... that was terrifying. She'd seen what had happened to Captain Falx, seen what they'd done to Psi and Maestro and Monte, and knew there were hundreds of numbers in that database she'd never met that were under their control, scattered throughout space and worlds.
What Jet had showed her. That mechanical brain, trapped within that cylinder, infected with the nanites that changed it. Something with tendrils, pulsating as it tried to escape the prison it had been set into.
She- she hoped Jet was doing all right. That he was okay.
Dart twitched her spoiler as she lifted her foot and pawed once at the ground. She rocked back on her heels and looked over at Bandit.
"I know, you're more careful than I am," she said, with a small nod. Then she gave him a little grin. "Mostly. Except on your relationships, probably, but I can't even say that."
She chuckled, and then nodded, growing serious once more. "Okay though. Be careful. And if you hear the name Soma? You need to get out of there, and let me know when you can. But..."
A sigh. "I guess- for now? I should probably get home. Before they realize I'm not where I'm supposed to be. You know how it goes."