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.
Episode 3.0 | Week 1 | Day 6 | Afternoon Somewhere over Idaho
Rain continued to ascend. Her pusher propeller clawing at the air ahead and thrusting it downwards. She was nose up to the sky steadily climbing past 15,000 feet with her vertical velocity slowly declining.
“We have just passed 15,000 feet and will begin our descent shortly.” Rain spoke over the comms but to noone in particular. It was just the simple joy of a vain smartaft liking the sound of their own voice. “Please observe as I demonstrate the physics of Gravity once again prevailing over the meager power of my humble engines”.
Shortly thereafter, Rain’s velocity slowed to zero, and then went negative as she slid neatly into a stall turn. She quickly let herself enter a flat spin letting out a whoop of joy. Normally, an aircraft with a canard configuration - like Rain - would be in terminal trouble during a flat spin, but Rain was far from normal. The autobot flier was an experienced, skilled, and overall exquisite flier with no issue at all exiting a flat spin. A subtle trim there, a twist of her ailerons and elevators and she was diving straight down under full power. The sky was her terrain and she had mastered it long ago.
Earth’s clear blue skies were an absolute delight to the alien femme.
The wind whipped fiercely past Skystone, buffeting her as she powered through the skies. The Earth's bright blue sky seemed to endlessly stretch on before her, and she couldn't help the thrill she felt as she took it all in.
Skystone wasn't generally playful, usually more task oriented- even most of her downtime hobbies had endgoals, things to work towards.
But even she couldn't help the flash of amusement that went through her as the other femme (Rain, she'd recently learned) narrated her own flight. They'd come to Idaho to get some fresh air, get out of the base for . a bit. It'd been stressful lately at the Omega base, and Skystone was itching to get out. The open sky would always be her first love.
As she watched Rain twist and turn in the sky, she couldn't help but be slightly awed. Aerobatics were slightly more difficult for a larger build such as herself, but she was no slouch in the air.
As Rain went into her spin, Sky simply banked smoothly to leave room, then stalling and losing altitude so her bank turned more diagonal before coming up into a less steep spin than landed her directly above Rain.
"'Physics of gravity' doesn't usually prevail over fliers, at least in my experience," she drawled. If she'd been in her other form, she'd be smirking- showing said gravity who was boss was one of the most engaging bits of being an aerial. Sure, she couldn't go mingle with the humans nearly as easily as a grounder, but as far as she was concerned, that benefit could never outweigh the feeling of soaring through open skies.
Post by Skirmisher on Mar 20, 2020 20:55:06 GMT -5
The Osprey had been conducting a patrol for the last few breems, and Skirmisher had kept his scanners on a rotational basis with long range sweeps to short range. He'd made certain not to have interfered with local RADAR Systems, but had known that even aircraft flown by the native Humans had possessed RADAR of their own. The Praxian had mulled over the events of a Patrol only a few “days” ago and the encounter with a near like-minded individual had still been fresh in his Main Processor.
The skies on this Planet had a tendency to be crowded in places, but the skies over Idaho he'd discovered had been fairly open. He hadn't entirely missed the Traffic congestion he'd encountered on the Highways and Freeways of the native Cybertron when he'd had an Grounded APC Alt-Form, and hadn't regretted having chosen the Osprey as a new Alt-Form after his arrival or rather after his revival on the planet. Though he'd opted for a flying Alt-Form, the Praxian hadn't let that get to his helm and had understood or attempted to understand the advantages and disadvantages of both an airborne Alt-Form and a Grounded Alt-Form. He hadn't thought of himself as being better than his other Cybertronian brethren, but that he'd only been different in his approaches and experiences.
“The opportunity to have company on patrols isn't something that happens frequently,” Skirmisher said, over the com-link having narrowed the encrypted frequencies to the ones the two other Fliers used.
He'd observed the energy of the two other Fliers, both Autobots given that he'd seen Skystone back at the Outpost and Rain during the Safety Briefing hosted by Red Alert. Their forms had taken a little getting used to, but the V-22 Osprey form had taken a little getting used to as well. There were few among the Autobot ranks that were Fliers, and those few that were tended to either be loners or grouped together to form Units of their own. He'd maintained a decent Altitude of roughly at twelve-thousand feet more from how if he'd needed to he could have dropped to a lower altitude if combat had been present or he'd had to keep an eye for rescue operations.
Last Edit: Mar 24, 2020 3:22:05 GMT -5 by Skirmisher
Rain pulled up hard from her dive, her wings straining against the high gees. It was a feeling absolutely unique to fliers. She was structurally strong enough to hold a full ten gees without component failure though she rarely exceeded half of that. Even the slickest grounder only ever hit five gees on their tightest turns. The cost however was weight, and Rain like most fliers had mostly thin armor. She was light, and so she danced.
Leveling out from the dive Rain entered a barrel roll with every intention of circling Skystone. “Tell me again how much you can defy gravity the next time you escape Earth’s pull.” She giggled over the comms. “And yes, company makes nearly everything better.” Again more excitement in Rain’s voice. There were really so few things Rain preferred to do on her own, and patrols was not one of them.
The lithe flier looked over Skystone’s and Skirmisher’s altmodes again with contemplation. Skirmishers swung propellers in circles much like Rain did, and thus they shared certain limitations, like outright top speed never exceeding mach one, or the absolute need for an atmosphere. Technically her cybertronian engines did not need oxygen, but it was better. Skystone was a jet however and Rain could name at least one jet who could switch over to rocket mode, at which point the sky was no longer the limit. “You’re not some spaceplane are you Skystone, sneakily hiding escape velocity power?” Rain asked quizzically.
Skystone held her course steady as Rain danced around her, drifting up into a gentler barrel roll when she was done circling her. Skystone was a rarer type flier, as her job working transport of materials lended her bulk most aerials didn’t have.
She chuckled slightly again as Rain continued. She actually was able to fly in space, a slightly antiquated skill, but one that she was grateful for after the Exodus.
She couldn’t help but agree with Skirmisher. She wasn’t extremely gregarious by nature, but patrolling alone could be tedious, and conversation with her comrades was always interesting.
At Rain’s question, Skystone hummed and answered, “Actually, yes. Not very sneakily, but I am technically a spaceplane. Just not as well suited to long journeys as a Seeker type.” She had another moments compilation. “Granted, I also fill a very different role,” she added somewhat ruefully. Seekers were by far her least favorite aerials to deal with. She knew it wasn’t fair to generalize, but she’d rarely had a friendly encounter with one.
“Some of us transports were given the ability, if we needed to make a quicker trip by bypassing the atmosphere, or had some resource to collect. However, the ability really was mostly helpful during Exodus.” This last part was said with a little tension. She’d never forget the day her and her band of neutrals abandoned their home.
“The Seekers are glory hounds, or at least most that I've met have been,” Skirmisher said. “On Cybertron, I was a Grounder. My form was an APC designed to suppress Rioters, and detain those that violated city-state Ordinances. After being revived on this Planet, I decided to try something different and scanned one of the humans' VTOL aircraft. I wasn't designed initially to be among those that could fly, but in the short time after choosing this form I've come to appreciate it,”
“The Exodus? I seemed to have miss it. I was in Voluntary Stasis for several Millennia after a fierce engagement took place on this Planet,” he'd say.
He'd read the data files or at least those files that were available on the subject of the Exodus, but as the Enforcer hadn't been on Cybertron even for several Millennia before their Faction departed their home he'd only been able to have wondered that the decision to evacuate hadn't been a light one. Their kind had become far flung, to distant stars and distant planets or at least those of their Faction that had survived.
It hadn't taken his Sixth Sense to be triggered to allow him to pick up the hesitation, and tension detected in Skystone's voice pertaining to the evacuation. He'd been about to ask what it had been like, but quickly reconsidered.
“What did you do back on Cybertron?” he'd asked both Skystone and Rain.
With maneuvers completed, Rain pulled in close to Skystone, about a dozen meters separating their wing tips. Rain had no problem at all matching speeds and attitude in the air though she realised Skystone was potentially an order a magnitude faster than either herself or Skirmisher if the femme could get spaceborne.
“Showoff!” Rain cheekily and deliberately ironically called Skystone. She too noticed the shift in the other femme’s tone and considered having a peaceful chat with Skystone when they eventually touched back down. Rain also considered the worth of Giving Skirmisher some flying lessons. If he was originally a grounder then his flying skills would likely lag without further help, unless he was adventurous enough to push himself to the limit.
“Ha! Back on Cybertron I was originally a fashion frame designer, vain and full of myself. I mean I still am, vain that is. Some things never change.” Rain chuckled gently with mild self depreciation. “For a while I was an animal rights activist but that’s a whole nother cloud of scraplets all in itself.” For a moment she considered what she had learned of Earth’s wildlife and thought of the nasty repetition of history. Not her immediate concern but one she would certainly investigate at some point.
“So tell me, when was the last time the pair of you went skydiving?” Now Rain full well knew there was a good chance they didn't know exactly what she was talking about, but that was just going to add to the excitement if she could con them into trying it.
As Rain glided over near to Skystone, the flier went to match pace.
She gave a small chuckle at Rain’s comment about being a showoff, catching the irony behind the words.
She drifted a little towards Skirmisher as he asked his question.
“I ran transport back on Cybertron, usually for construction companies across the planet.” There was some pride in her words. Despite how long it had been since those days, Skystone was proud of the work she had done, despite how her life had ended up turning out. Rain’s answer made her perk up a little bit- it was subconscious, and a little juvenile for her, but she had never met someone with a job that upscale seeming. Then the animal rights comment came up, which was...unexpected. “That’s a big shift in job there,” she stated, her tone a little bemused.
Then..."skydiving" came up? She wasn’t really sure what Rain meant- she had dived through the sky, if that ‘s what the femme was referring to. But she doubted that’d be a question Rain asked? But Skystone tried to keep her confusion simple.
“Skydiving?” That one word held a million questions, main one being what-in-the-Pit-do-you-mean.
"Skydiving?" Skirmisher asked. He'd known what the term had meant, and hat the Hobby seemed to have been one adrenaline seeking Humans -- and even many Cybertronians -- had sought for a sense of thrill and in the risk of it. He simply hadn't understood why those that decided to hurl themselves out a perfectly good aircraft -- or in the case of Cybertron a space cruiser -- in a free fall either attempting acrobatics or aimed for a small target on the ground.
"I fail to see the enjoyment in that kind of hobby," he'd say. He'd been a Grounder and though he'd scanned an aerial form since he'd been revived from his Stasis, there had still been times when he'd shared more in common with a Grounder. He hadn't been afraid of flying or in gaining or losing altitude, but he hadn't been about to follow through with something like that. He preferred having control over his actions, and his means of conveyance or even if he'd somehow lost that means of control he'd at least learned enough to glide to the surface.
"I still remember the few times I'd been called out to assist Fire Brigade Units in cleaning up the remains of a skydiver from the elevated highways to store-fronts. It wasn't pretty in any sense. One of the few that stand out involved a bot slamming into a flyer and sending both tumbling, and when the winds picked up caused both to slam into one of the Scientists that worked at the Assembly," the Enforcer explained.
Last Edit: May 13, 2020 2:14:37 GMT -5 by Skirmisher
There were no two ways about it, Rain was seriously considering Skirmisher to be a dry kill-joy. How could anyone not understand the sheer thrill of skydiving? Well she did know how but still, she considered all those who wanted no thrills to be the neutrals who left Cybertron early. For her, the thrill and the rush were intoxicating. Their lives were so long, anything at all to break the tedium of existence was wanted.
“I mean no disrespect to those who hurt themselves, and the innocents, in the pursuit of a thrill, but perfectly safe gets perfectly boring after millenia on end.” She tried to keep any disapproval from her voice. But she wasn't about to let any mere discussion bring down her high mood.
“Like this Skystone!.”
Rain pumped her energon and went full throttle. She pulled ahead and then she pulled up. As soon as she was vertical, she transformed. With the exact nature of her transformation without throwing acrobatics into the mix, Rain was moving feet first with her hands pointed at her feet and her arms tight to her sides. She looked to be falling feet first, except her momentum meant she was falling upwards.
As Rain approached the apogee of her accent, she curled her legs up and rolled backwards twice. She came down in a dive head first with arms stretched forward. She rolled halfway, so she was now feet first, and transformed back into an aircraft and then pulled up level once more. This put her back on the same altitude as the others but behind them.
Rain made it look easy, but that was due to millenia of practice and no small amount of talent.
Skystone gave a dry chuckle at Skirmishers words. a work oriented mech- she could understand the perspective. Granted, his work was gruesome, but life was for everyone nowadays anyways. However, she personally didn’t see the appeal in constantly pointing it out. But everyone had their ways of coping with millennia of things gone wrong, she supposed.
Rain’s exclamation drew her from her thoughts. Skystone watched, somewhat startled, s Rain transformed and started plummeting towards the ground. Every instinct Skystone had prompted her to try and catch her, even though she knew Rain was perfectly safe.
Her cohort had played sky-games as well, when they were all much younger. Fliers like her weren’t built for acrobatics, however, and so they generally stayed to their alt-mode when flying. She wasn't sure she could change as quickly as Rain did.
While her face wasn't being shown, there was a rare seed of doubt in her usually steady voice as she spoke to Rain.
“I’m not sure I could do that without becomin’ a splat on the ground…” Even as she spoke, she was trying to figure out a way to make it happen. Skystone had never been one to back down from a task, no matter how challenging. She glanced around at the terrain. She supposed if she did crash, there wasn't much to destroy. Bracing herself, she angled herself downward and transformed, feet first much like Rain s she plummeted. The wind whipped round her form, and the Earth was rapidly approaching. She didn’t go very far before she clumsily changed back and came back up behind the group.
Once she had regained balance, she came up beside Rain.
“I have no idea how you manage to go farther- I felt like I was two seconds from hittin’ the ground!” The whole experience put a shot of emotion in her usually unimpressed voice, but she figured free-falling gave her a pass.
Listening to Rain, Skirmisher had opted to have remained silent following the remark on how those that sought the thrill of a pursuit while remaining safe only to have continued in a boring existence. Everyone had their opinion and while his Processor could have delved into more dangerous opinions which some might have seen as revolutionary that had sparked an ongoing War that had consumed many planets including their home planet and the one that threatened to engulf the one they currently inhabited. He could have tasked his Processor with that, but he'd been more than certain scientists and those scholars among their Kind that had survived the War to this point had tasked their own Processors with it and often lagged in it.
The following actions hadn't been entirely unexpected to him, but the notion the other lithe Flier would have justified transforming even at such an altitude in mid-flight would have on their home planet been deemed either foolhardy or labeled her an adrenaline junkie -- a term he'd discovered on the human's data net. On this world though with the ever present dangers of both the Decepticons to M.E.C.H. and any other Party that might have held far from altruistic motives towards their Kind such a decision carried dangerous consequences, and ones where their Kind might have been visually detected from the Ground or from other Aircraft or even from the Orbital Satellites.
He hadn't been able to have believed that Skytone would have taken after the younger Flier's impulsiveness. Increasing the range of his long-range scanners, he'd programmed them to detect even the most minute presence of Decepticons, M.E.C.H. and other such Parties that had shown more than simple curiosity towards them. Opening his throttle a little bit more, the engine nacelles thrummed as more power had been channeled into them resulting in the propellers spinning a little bit faster in order to have kept up with the two other Fliers even after having returned to their Alt-Modes.
"Let's hope no one saw that from the ground, other aircraft or from Orbit," Skirmisher said. "Rafael will have to scrub any footage of that,"
Last Edit: Jun 17, 2020 23:51:59 GMT -5 by Skirmisher
"You're space capable!" Rain chuckled with delight "Fly into orbit and practise with all the time in the world! Even at this height, you should have a solid 30 seconds of freefall." Rain giggled with delight. She veered close to Skystone and then back away again teasingly. Her casual easy going demeanor dropped away quickly however at Skirmisher's words. It wasn't a reprimand but Rain still felt caught out.
"You err..you have a good point there Skirmisher, we were, that is to say, I was reckless. Anyone watching us is already going to be suspicious of our disparate alts." All three of them being propeller driven was about the only thing they all had in common as fliers. "I will have to give serious consideration to what this planet has in the way of blindspots." She added further.
Rain felt guilty for indulging herself with aerial antics, risking her two companions, and risking discovery by humans. She chided herself and silently vowed to improve her wayward behaviour. Such self derision didn't last long as she chose to learn from the mistake rather than dwell in the past.
"When I was still a fresh sparkling, barely a millennia under the wings, myself and those I called friends practised our aerial antics over the plains of rust. We'd strap on parachutes for those of us with more wisdom then bearings and blow every drop of our energon rations. What did you two do to punch tedium in the face?" Rain asked conversationally.
Skystone would be smiling, if she were in her alt form back on the ground. Rain made a good point, she had the whole atmosphere to practice. She wasn't sure she’d ever try that again on her own just for fun, but it could be a useful skill one day.
Skirmisher had a fair point, although as Skystone looked at the area, she noted it didn’t look residential, so maybe they’d gotten off alright.
She chuckled as she listened to Rain’s story. Her question gave her pause, however.
“Usually, me and my cohort worked so hard, we wouldn’t have much downtime. So what we would do is play sky games on the way back from a delivery. Sometimes we’d chase each other, sometimes we’d do aerial tricks, it really depended on the mood. We had to be careful not to be late of course, but it made what we did a little less tedious.”
Her spark panged at the reminder of her old friends. She knew better than to even bother trying to think of any fun she’d ever had once the war started. Then, her life just became a blur.
Mentally shaking herself out of the brief funk, she asked,
The Osprey maintained a lower Altitude, though the Praxian could have climbed to a higher altitude which would have increased his speed to nearly match Skystone's and possibly Rain's. Angling his control surfaces or what would have been the Ailerons and flaps on other aircraft, Skirmisher climbed to an Altitude of roughly fifteen thousand feet allowing him to pick up speed without having to spin his propellers faster. He'd made certain to have avoided filling the same Airspace as the two other Fliers. The moment he'd achieved the higher Altitude, his control surfaces leveled out though he'd kept a safe distance in case someone either watched the Satellites, happened to trail them in another aircraft or eyed them from the ground.
"My Duty Shifts didn't allow time for Hobbies on Cybertron, and I don't really have any Hobbies during my assignment on this planet," Skirmisher explained. "I maintain a State of Readiness. I'll oversee maintenance on my weapon, to training my reflexes and reviewing techniques. The process of learning, and reviewing Ordinances even when there are new Entries is an ongoing process. It is the responsibility of each Enforcer to maintain a State of Readiness, and to understand Justice is a two lane highway,"
"I'm certain there were Enforcers within my Precinct and even within my Squad that pursued hobbies that interested them," he concluded.
"I entered Voluntary Stasis two Mega-Cycles following being abandoned by the few other Survivors from the previous Garrison in order to conserve Energon Supplies, and to insure power remained in the Shuttle. In the Cycles leading up to that second Mega-Cycle, there wasn't that much in the Shuttle in the way of entertainment. It was a vicious engagement," the Praxian began. If he'd had to convey his thoughts to other Fliers, Skystone and Rain had drawn those slots. "With the exception of a handful of Survivors, the majority of the Garrison as well as our Decepticon counterparts had been wiped out. I was brought out from Stasis a little over four millennia after that engagement. I've found when I've become interested in a Hobby or even curious, it'll lead to losing what control I have left. There have been more than a few temptations. I hold onto the Methods of Justice, and the Ordinances as a means to maintain what sanity that is left,"
Last Edit: Jun 26, 2020 0:46:11 GMT -5 by Skirmisher