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.
Steeljaw settled his chin against her plates, keeping his neck arched, and was glad that it kept his optics pointed downward as well. Large cohort, Shadowrunner said, and before she had come to Earth. It was easy to connect the points from there.
Sorry was a singularly useless word - he had shoved the war from his own perspective at her, not taking into account what her own losses might have been. She might lack the context of a life before the war, but no loss was unfelt. Stupid of him, really, and rude. Arching his neck further, he nudged the flat of his helm against her thigh. "It's the little things that are the hardest. I think we all miss that." He pushed a smile through his field. "There's been times I would have killed for a rust stick. I miss sweets."
He waited for a pause in her touches, then quickly swiped another polishing stripe next to the previous one, two quick licks and done, in time to settle back and let her resume. "What do you do outside?" he asked, curious. "I haven't exactly been out... I don't have an alt form and I'm not terribly inconspicuous with the local humans."
"I miss anything that isn't standard rations," Shadow admitted. "And really good quality wax."
Both of which were luxuries she hadn't appreciated when she'd had them, and which were going to lead her thoughts back in the direction of home and family and other things she'd rather not think about. She was more than grateful when Steeljaw distracted her by ducking his head down to run his glossa over her leg armor again, and didn't point out that all he was doing was making the over-polished section larger and more noticable.
Not that she minded. It was far, far easier to explain away a bit of overly industrious buffing than to explain why her finish looked like someone had taken a screwdriver to her alt mode.
"Mostly, I race. At least when I have someone out with me; I guess when I go out alone I'm technically just speeding." She paused for a moment, focusing on what she was doing; his neck plating covered a wealth of sensor arrays and micro tools, and she doubted he'd thank her for contaminating them. A little grimace as she resumed speaking. "That sound a lot more pathetic when I say it out loud, but I enjoy it. I like how it feels when I'm pushing myself to the limit." She grinned, lightly swinging the leg she'd scraped. "Not so much when I actually go past my limits and slam into something, of course."
Another, longer pause, then she added sheepishly, "Sometimes afterward I just park in the mountains and see what wanders by. I almost had a coyote hitch a ride in my back seat, once, and when we were in Africa finding Rhinox, I kind of adopted a cheetah. Not," she added quickkly, "that I expect you to see the appeal of organic hitchhikers, given the condition you were in when we found you."
She ran a hand across his shoulder, not polishing, just a friendly caress. "Does it bother you, being stuck here?" Shadow was fairly certain being forced to stay on base for any length of time would drive her crazy, which was...strange, when she thought about it. Compared to Labyrinth's ship, the base was enormous, there weren't that many more mecha around than she was used to, and the freedom to simply leave was something she had never known before. Maybe it was just the habits of forty years alone which made the base seem crowded and confining...or maybe it really was the majority of Autobots who made the base seem over-crowded and confining. Venting, she shook the thought off and said, "Because you really aren't that big; I bet any of us could fit you into our alt modes if you wanted to go somewhere off base without being noticed."
The question startled him and Steeljaw paused in his sporadic polishing attempts to consider it. "I... don't know," he allowed at last, huffing a small laugh. "I can't rightly say I've thought about it. I've been on ships for vorns and it's not as though I'm fitted for going stroll about in vacuum. The base is larger than any ship I've been on, so it feels spacious enough. The only difference is the base isn't going anywhere."
Steeljaw considered Shadowrunner's plates again, adjusted his internal polish formula, and swiped another line that blended a little better with the rest of her plating. "I miss shopping," he admitted. "Not that going with any of you in your alt modes would solve THAT, as I don't think the local populace is ready for me to walk into the Jasper Apple Store and plunk down a bank card to buy one of the new iPads with."
"Shopping is what the internet is for. Or Miko, if you don't mind your packages arriving pre-opened. She can usually be bought for something shiny and an iTunes gift card, and she does not, in spite of what people will tell you, bring chaos and destruction wherever she goes." Shadow considered, then amended, "Well, chaos, but usually she saves the destruction for people who've actually torqued her off."
She gave the flared plates at the base of Steeljaw's neck a final swipe before moving down his back, and couldn't help smiling over the way he kept absently polishing at her leg, as if he couldn't quite help the compulsion to even out her finish. It was tempting to tease him about it, but she had the feeling if she brought up the fact she'd noticed, he'd stop, and it was the sort of easy, companionable gesture she hadn't realized she missed until she had a lap full of grooming symbiont.
Instead, she admitted, "The base is big enough, it's just the company I'm not always good with. I spent forty planetary rotations with nothing to do but explore two continents; I guess I got used to not being confined." And to not being around anyone else, but that sounded a little too much like she wanted to be alone, which was...the last thing she wanted to imply to one of the few mecha on base who didn't leave her looking for an escape route. "So if you ever do get the urge to explore parts of the planet which aren't the rainforest, just say the word."
Her leg plate was relatively even and she hadn't protested. Steeljaw considered, then picked the next highest plate, polishing with a short, careful overlay of licks. Her ministrations over his back had eased some of the awful itch he had been putting up with for what seemed like forever, ticking his engine over into a steady hum of contentment.
"I'm not always good with the company, but I wasn't always good with people on ship, either," Steeljaw admitted. "Maintenance crawl ways are a blessing when you need to get away, at least if you're my size. Primus bless the humans and their need for a breathable atmosphere - there's no where in this base that doesn't have ventilation duct access, and plenty of the ducts which can't be reached by anyone else. I've found some very cozy places for being solitary in."
Tilting his head to look up at her, Steeljaw glyphed the equivalent of a smile. "I've been assured that Jasper is one hundred percent LESS wet than the rainforest was. That's already a plus, in my book."
The worst of the neglected area on Steeljaw's back, from the base of his neck to about a third of the way down his backstrut, was finished, but the symbiont seemed content to keep polishing and being polished, if the hum of his systems could be believed. With a final rub of a clean cloth over his shoulders, Shadow moved her attentions down to the section around the weld scars. Not nearly as bad as where she'd just finished, except for the welds themselves, but dull in comparison to the newly polished spots, and showing a patchwork of efforts to remedy the situation.
"Yeah, there's a little bit of a difference. Jasper gets about as much rain in a year as parts of the rainforest get in a week." She worked polish into his plates, careful of the places she remembered being sensitive, and smiled a little. "Meaning less plant life, meaning less shade, meaning you can just park yourself in the desert and bake if you feel like it." Which she had done, more than once, especially right after joining up with the Autobots, when her systems had still been recovering from recent repairs and forty years of neglect, and the simple presence of so many other mecha had been more than she could deal with for any length of time. "There are lots of places the humans don't bother with, especially in the middle of summer. No trouble at all if a big metal cat wanted to sun himself on a rock."
Steeljaw's audials perked upright, his head lifting. "Solar collection? Really? Well-" he made a face, "-"I suppose that makes sense. The Amazon didn't have much, unless you climbed to the upper layers and you can see how that went." He arched the welds into her touch. "Less organic vegetation would certainly make that easier, and this system is supposed to be a very nice yellow dwarf star."
He nudged at her arm with his helm, an undemanding friendly gesture. "It's been ages since I 'baked' myself. If you ever want a passenger, I'd love to come along."
"Just say the word any time you want to go with me," Shadow said, rubbing the cloth over the welds. "Absolutely no climbing required."
She was quiet for a few nano-kliks, swapping the cloth with polish on it for a clean one so she could buff his back and sides to a uniform sheen. Even with the ugly lines of the weld scars, he looked 100% better than he had when she started, and her engine revved a little with satisfaction. "You've been on the base more than five kliks, so I assume you've figured out I'm gone at least as much as I'm here, and most of that time is neither official Autobot business nor authorized. So if you're worried about getting caught sneaking out with me, let me know and I'll make sure to jump through the official hoops before we leave." She grinned and reached up to rub behind his audials again. "Or you can just come on patrol with me, in which case I hope you don't have any issues with traveling at reckless and utterly unreasonable speeds."
All frame types had their peculiarities. Spots that were more or less sensitive, more or less prone to damage, more or less difficult to reach or care for by the mechanism in question. The sad truth of a quadruped frame was that it was nearly impossible for Steeljaw to reach his own audials properly and a quadruped's audials - unlike the usually stationary receptors in bipedal frames - were designed to be mobile, twisting independently of one another to improve sound reception in their surroundings. Accumulated vorns of near-constant motion tightened micro rotors and linkages, leaving the base mounts stiff with tension. The steady pressure of Shadowrunner's servos at the base of each appendage had an effect similar to cutting all of the linkages from Steeljaw's first backstrut node on down, sprawling him in a limp heap of strutless, revving metal.
Oh Primus, it had been forever and then some since anyone had properly unkinked the linkages in his audials. Shadowrunner's massage was a little aimless, but Steeljaw didn't care.
"Don't stop," he mumbled into her plates. "Please don't stop. I'll give you whatever you want - polish, entertainment vids, whatever I have - if you will just please keep doing that."
It took him several long moments of engine purring bliss before he could focus on what she had actually said. "You know, I don't think I've ever tried reckless and utterly unreasonable speeds. That sounds... fun."
Shadow grinned as Steeljaw melted into a puddle of contentment across her lap. "Oh, so I've figured out how you can be bought, huh?" she teased, the rubbing becoming more deliberate now that she knew he enjoyed it. "I'll have to keep that in mind. Never know when it could be useful."
Like the next time she wanted to spend an afternoon doing nothing more stressful than polishing another frame and remembering what it was like to have her brothers and sisters packed around her.
"If you think you're up for it," she said, setting one thumb firmly against the base of Steeljaw's audial - and now that she was looking for it, she could the tight linkages under the flexible surface of his microplating, follow the lines of stress from one to the next - and then pressing, a slow, steady slide toward his neck, "I'll show you my idea of fun: top speed from one end of this state to the other. An amazing tour of the region's bio-diversity," she grinned and moved to the next knot of tension, "that you'll be going too fast to see or appreciate."
Steeljaw's optic shutters slid shut in time to the slide of Shadowrunner's servos against his audials, as though the systems were slaved together and pressing one activated the other. "Biological systems are best observed when going too fast to appreciate, if you ask my opinion," he observed, vocalizer thrumming in a low hum of enjoyment. "It sounds like fun."
He shook his head sharply, dislodging her hand. "And you're going to put me into recharge, so unless you want a lump of insensate symbiont mimicking dead weight on your lap, we may need to call a halt here."
"I would hate to do that to you," Shadow said, though one hand slid teasingly back for a final quick rub at the base of his audials before she let him flow strutlessly off her lap to the floor. "Though I'd have no objection to a lump of insensate symbiont mimicking dead weight on my hood, so keep that in mind when we go for our drive."
Truth be told, she wouldn't have had any objection to letting him stay; the warmth and contentment and simple presence had been welcome. But he was already up the wall and halfway to the door, and so she made her field deliberately teasing as she added, "And let me know next time you need someone to scratch those weld scars."