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.
"I think we made her grumpy." Even in her broken state, irritating Patch was the last thing Sundance ever wanted to do. The guilt she felt in that alone was sufficient to bring her down to earth from whatever high induced state she been floating through. The constant pain barely kept at bay gnawed a little deeper into her awareness as the little flier's natural buoyancy sank.
Stiff joints settled a tad as Suni forced herself to just simply settle, head still, hands and fingers still, like she was sleeping. Eventually she replied to Jetfire. "It's manageable for now.." Her raspy voice quieter than before. She knew the pain was going to grow without any medication, over the hours, days and probably weeks. Torn nerves were silent, but as they healed, they'd signal the injuries they detected - loudly.
"Don't rush the legs kay? I know I'm going to be here awhile." her voice trailed off with that admission. She hated it, being injured, being grounded, being still. The racer enjoyed the freedom to move, having the option to just run, even when she was sitting down, she wanted that option always. To her, that was more important than her sight. She didnt let herself dwell long however, this was just another challenge and she would rise above it in the end.
"Hey um Jetfire...I couldn't help but notice I'm not exactly covered in spilt energon and oil. Did you...help?" There was slight embarrassment in her voice. After kicking a missile, and after massive surgery, she would have been covered in mess, but she had seen through the eyes of her holotar that she was fairly clean. Ergo, someone had cleaned her up.
"Of course I did," Jetfire replied. "It was hardly sanitary to operate on you, otherwise."
In spite of his past mentorship, the ex-seeker was only so capable of helping in an actual medical emergency. The least he could do was to clean his patient up a bit.
Sundance's modesty aside, Jetfire felt he was primarily responsible for Patch's irritation. Suni had been nothing but an agreeable patient thus far. He tried not to let it get the better of him for now, at least. Hearing that his new patient's pain was indeed manageable did lessen some of the weight upon his shoulders, though Jetfire was quick to busy himself reading over each and every procedure that Patch had bequeathed to him.
"On the contrary," he replied. "I don't believe we have the equipment or the facilities necessary for me to take my time with it." If nothing else, Sundance would hopefully be given the ability to walk again relatively soon. On the other hand, even with Jetfire's mechanical expertise, the new legs surely wouldn't be winning any awards for beauty. Even a low-tech solution could innovate, however. Jetfire rubbed his chin, as he had a proclivity toward when there was thinking to be done. The flier raised a finger, mostly for his own sake, given Sundance's lacking perception department.
"However, that's not to say a quick fix doesn't have its benefits. A basic," he paused, lightly pushing against the bed with his digits a few times to visualize his point. "-springy prosthesis would have no energy draw, freeing up your strength for more critical systems." There were other issues, naturally. Cybertronians never really dealt with standardized prosthesis, given the absurd variety of their body types. Everything was always custom made for the amputee, which involved a great deal more measurement and experimentation than standardized prosthesis required.
Suni was a good soldier, however. She had the strength of character to get through this, Jetfire believed.
"Barring creating it, affixing it, and habituating oneself to it, the most difficult part will be designing it to accommodate a brand new alt mode." Jetfire paused, shifting air through his vents. He was less of a physician at this point, and more of an artist laying out the requirements for a client. "You'll need to select a new one, as far as my assessment goes. Two legs is quite a bit of mass to lose, and I doubt any prosthetic we can craft here will be sufficient to replace it all."
Jetfire stepped back, fishing his datapad off of a nearby surface. Ideally, he should've been notating his thoughts and observations this whole time. He hadn't been, so his servos furiously tapped away to record everything before it escaped working memory.
"And... do let me know if I sound to be too insensitive. I'm far too used to solving problems on a chalkboard, which has far fewer feelings than a sentient being."
"Jetfire my mech, I love you and your passion but..." How could she put this, articulate indefinite feelings. "You're not being insensitive, it's just that...I'm uncertain of the challenges ahead." Suni did love her challengers but much less so the uncertainty, and she was certainly feeling uncertain. She ached all over in ways she could barely process. She knew she needed to rest and heal - for a darn long time. She wanted to go slow but she did not want to sleep, though she assuredly needed to.
That was the thing about Sundance and her phobias. She really didn't like going under for surgery, though as a highly modded racer, she went under more than most. And afterwards when she needed to rest and adjust, she liked to zone out to cartoons rather than try to sleep. That was no longer an option. As difficult as she found Jetfire's words to follow with her head so full of unwelcome mush, his voice was welcome, and she focused on it. He was saying quite a lot and she couldn't process much of it, but the words Altmode clung to her memory, so she focused her thoughts there.
"Altmode shopping will be fun." Her strained voice carrying wry humor. "Maybe you can help there since I...dont think I can google anything for awhile. Also, the humans have a distinct lack of options in my size, so have fun with that." Sundance really was at the little end of human jet fighters; she'd picked her current alt from a museum. She was disguised as a replica of a defunct vehicle.
No matter what, she was going to need time before she would put her petals to the mettle again. Time for lots of other things too then. "Oh gosh darn it! Jetfire, I give you full permission to access my med files and specs." Her effective blueprints with all their vital statistics would allow Jetfire to start basic calculations and designs without needing to physically measure her up. Had she not been subjectively high on meds, she still would have trusted the red and white mech with her personal files. There were no unsavory secrets to be found and all the taboos could go suck vacuum. "Design and build me what you think will work best." Words she used to say to Nitro, old memories fluttered by. Sundance still missed those gorgeous green optics.
The was an empty, blank box that corresponded to the word's meaning within Jetfire's head. He didn't care to fill it, really. Still, some other part of him demanded to check, somehow. He'd have to google it, apparently.
He detected the strong undercurrent of uncertainty lacing between Sundance's words, but also, because she had spelled it out for him. He passed a glance to her partly broken, partly restored form from above the top of his faintly glowing datapad. Nothing he hadn't seen before. He'd seen worse, on several occasions. Suni was right to be uncertain, but she wasn't despairing just yet.
The problem of finding a suitable altmode for her was suddenly tacked to his mind-corkboard, little strings tying around the epicenter of the problem, stretching outwards in a search for solutions. She truthfully was on the smaller side as far as fliers go, the two-winged ones at least. Sundance's form struck him as that of a racer's upon their first meeting, not a fighter like his own. Plane racing wasn't exactly a sport on Earth, as far as he could tell thus far. There would be no other aircraft that could conceptually fill the same niche as her previous form, that much was true.
Jetfire's brow hitched itself upwards, slowly.
Perhaps she needed a new niche, then? She'd be getting a new body anyway, for the most part. And, this body would have its design specifications planned out in advance, rather than fresh out of the eons' worth of sentio metallico of Cybertron. His icy blue optics returned to his datapad, opening a new tab.
Though obviously his patient couldn't see him, she would've been able to pick up on his several long seconds of silence, cut only by the rhythmic tapping of his digits upon the screen.
"A one-to-one replication of an existing aircraft isn't explicitly necessary, of course..."
He paused, throwing up several quickly thought-of schematics with Sundance's new mass and dimensions factored in, in addition to the cross section comparison between existing human modes of aerial transportation.
"A one-to-one replication is quite honestly, though especially in your case, a luxury. Few humans will ever get a close-up of me, or any other seeker for that matter. And besides, it would severely constrain our options. You simply need to look close enough to the real thing, whatever it happens to be."
Factoring in looser standards of appearance, Jetfire found the scope of his options blossoming. This was the way to go, he felt it in his spark, and his brain compartment.
"I will certainly do my best, though it doesn't help that my primary medical consultant is currently a retrograde amnesiac..."
He wasn't talking about Patch, obviously. Jetfire respected her for putting up with being thrown into such an odd and difficult situation with almost no warning. But, Ratchet was Ratchet. He could use a Ratchet, right about now.
Sundance liked Patch, quite a lot, but right now she knew that she really could use the greater expertise of Ratchet, or better yet the skills of a very long-gone friend from before the war who had helped make her into the racer she was. But these options were flights of fancy, fleeting daydreams on turbulent winds. Her mind was a turbulent wisp of wind right now, Suni, broken and beaten was having greater difficulty focusing and following the conversation. What Jetfire said made sense, about the 1 to 1 scale thing, but the idea seemed to slip away again before she could lock it down in memory.
"Explain that to me more please - like I'm five clock-cycles old." Her voice was slipping, sore throat making every syllable more of a whisper. She wanted to rest, to even sleep, but some stupid part of her was scared of losing consciousness, and she didn't actually want Jetfire to leave but nor did she want to impose. The mech's attention was a luxury, and one she could hardly claim was owed.
Was there some chance of taking an alt closer to her Cybertronian form? Sundance wondered. That would be nice, she felt. Her current form was definitely fun, but not quite as aerodynamic as she liked. The pain in her body brought forth memories of other crashes and inadvertently her lips grimaced at these less than pleasant memories.
Even when asked to make things more digestible, Jetfire's stupidly active brain module made motions to tack on additional elaborations for the sake of... elaboration. He liked giving as much detail as he possibly could, after all. Old habits and such. He lowered the datapad he'd buried himself in closer to his waist, offering him a full view of the injury. Her voice was tired, and strained. Hearing it bent his brows with visible concern.
"In all likelihood, we will only need to find a form for you to take that looks... slightly Earth-like."
He fought to stop himself from going into such supplementary topics such as size, mass, aerodynamics, and about a million more. Though to be fair, those were topics he himself would need to approach. Suni was in no condition to go shopping for new modes, currently. Best she be left to rest and recuperate for now. In time, Jetfire knew he'd have a few good options all planned out for her.
"But, we can go into details later. I believe rest would do you a fair bit of good."
“Rest...yes…I need that…” Sundance’s voice trailed from whisper to silence. Despite her discomfort, despite her pain, despite her fear, she was losing the challenge to stay conscious. She knew she shouldn't fight it, but she absolutely felt that she had to.
Consciousness had other other plans and quietly left the scene. Not feeling anything felt good.
“Please don't leave.” She asked. Sundance didn't know if she had thought the words or only dreamed that she had.
End.
Last Edit: Jan 31, 2023 19:37:11 GMT -5 by Sundance