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.
Shadow regarded him with an attempt at sternness (marred by the beginnings of a grin), completely unsurprised that whatever mischief Steeljaw had gotten into had been aimed at Blaster. "You are way too pleased with yourself, for someone seeking asylum under my berth. What did you do, and how'd you slip up enough to get caught?" She dropped all pretense of disapproval, the grin escaping fully. "It must have been good, if Blaster wants your head mounted on his wall."
She settled onto the edge of berth, patting the pad beside her in invitation. "I don't know when you're supposed to be on shift, but I have patrol in about fifteen kliks. If you really want to be someplace you won't be found, I'll take you with me in exchange for the details of what you've been up to and sweeping my room for Rattrap's cameras when we get back."
::I'm sure you do,:: Steeljaw shot back - and just to be on the safe side, in case Blaster had recovered enough of his circuits and processor, he bounced the return comm through the central mainframe to block a location ping, making sure that his own location still showed up securely at his post on the monitors. ::Do have fun getting here. Don't throw anything out of joint that Ratchet would make you regret later.::
Hopping onto the berth, he leaned in to press the flat of his helm against Shadowrunner's arm. "I wasn't ever really intending NOT to be caught," he admitted. "It was more for the fun of it. If the glitch of a git wants to drink himself into processor failure and then forget to take himself off shift, well, I consider it my duty as a subordinate to point out how stupid that idea was." He grinned up at her, field all but effervescent with it. "I have some lovely audio of him purging his tanks out after I scared him. Technically, I'm on shift right now, but it's all patched into my feeds, it's not like I have to be anywhere in particular physically to monitor it."
Steeljaw bumped her arm again with his head. "Going to let me hang my head out your window?"
::And do you have any idea,:: he added almost thoughtfully to Blaster, ::just how silly the allegation of bastardry is to a sparked symbiont? I'm all for assimilating the local idioms 'old chap', but maybe we ought to rethink some of these.::
Last Edit: Apr 23, 2012 14:49:32 GMT -5 by Deleted
"Blaster got himself cratered and you'Ve been taking advantage of the poor glitch?" Shadow tsked softly, leaning into him. "Jaws, that's terrible. Hilarious, probably well deserved, but terrible. Jazz is going to be sooo disappointed...mostly that you didn't let the rest of us in on it. These opportunities don't come up every day."
Mischief crackled in her field, and she reached up to scratch along the base of his 'mane'. "And yes, once we're outside you can hang your head out the window just like this, if you share that audio file with me. I'll even detail the bugs out of your plating when we get back, assuming Blaster isn't angry enough to search me for contraband symbionts the nano-klik I'm through the bridge. However, to get you out unseen," she eyed him thoughtfully, "I think you'll have to settle for curling up in my trunk."
"Bugs? In plating?" Steeljaw shuddered. "No, no, that won't be necessary, in that case I'll pass on the window bit. But off base for a bit might be prudent." He grinned, head nudging her shoulder. "Not that Blaster can get into the vents, but if he flushes the processor hangover he might remember how to de-encrypt a triangulation ping and in a flat out war of processors he can virus bomb me into a glitched wreck." He paused. "I don't think he would. Really. But better safe than sorry, and off base and out of the network removes some of the temptation."
Leaning back, he tilted his head, looking at her. "I'm sure I can fit in your trunk - I can probably fit in your subspace, unless you're carrying a lot of things, and I don't mind it for brief periods - but how are we going to manage that and still get you off on patrol without suspicion? Unless you normally drive through the corridors?"
"You'd be amazed the things Bee and I have done," Shadow said, "and there are a couple of severely dented corners at the aft end of the base to prove it." She was almost disappointed; arousing and then thwarting Blaster's suspicions would have been its own kind of fun, really. Then again, she hadn't been entirely joking when she'd suggested Blaster might decide to search her, and that idea made her twitch. Particularly when she considered the possibility of Jazz being dragged into things. She was fairly certain he'd find Jaws' prank funny; she wasn't nearly as certain how he'd react to her participation.
"But you're probably right about someone noticing, and I'd hate for you to get caught because I'm not as clever as I think I am. Besides, if you're willing to cram yourself into my subspace...well, look around." She gestured at the spartan room. "My quarters don't look like this because I feel the need to carry everything on my person. At the moment, the only thing I've got subspaced is one illegally obtained cactus." She shrugged sheepishly. "It's a surprise for Rhinox, and I'd appreciate it if you didn't mention that it didn't actually come from the Jasper garden center."
Steeljaw was fairly certain he could cram himself into the femme's subspace with a little creative folding - or, better still, by making use of his OWN subspace ala his alt, which would compress the problem of limbs, and THEN letting her subspace him.
Just because he COULD didn't mean it sounded very enjoyable. Subspace was never terribly enjoyable, or even slightly so.
He realized he was sharpening a claw and made himself stop. "What about this," he suggested. "There's a vent opening just above the landbridge controls. Blaster..." he paused, optics narrowing as he checked, "...is in the rec room right now, trying to bribe Bee to tell him where I am. So, you go out like you're going on patrol, just like you would normally. I'll meet you in the control room. Bring up the bridge - I'll be out of the vent and through before the cameras can catch anything." He rubbed his head against her arm. "Then we can go for a drive while Blaster finds his sense of humor, and I'll give you the full recordings of what we did. Deal?"
"And how much of a trail are you going to leave between here and there, if Blaster thinks to look for you?" Shadow asked, though his reaction made her suspect subspacing him would be a terrible idea, even if he had brought it up. She reached up, rubbing the base of his audials. "Don't want Blaster to catch you if his processor comes online before his sense of humor does. I'd hate to find you strung up by your tail somewhere." She grinned. "Especially before I hear the sordid story of how you made Blaster purge his tanks."
Steeljaw waved a forepede. "I still have control over the security system right now. The cameras are showing what I want them to show, and a little judicious looping will keep them from leaving a trail even if Blaster congeals enough of his processor to remember to check them - and only about half of them are actually displaying correctly anyways. I smeared glitter and some organic petroleum gel - vaseline? - all over the rest." He stuck out the tip of his glossa. "I'm going to have to clean all of that when we get back."
He leaned slightly into the rubbing, audials relaxing. "As long as I'm quiet enough to fool the audio feeds, there won't be anything to mark my trail. It'll take me a little longer, but if I go now I can meet you at the control room with time to spare." He grinned at her, dente flashing. "Game?"
"Go on, then, before Blaster undoes all your dirty work," Shadow said, though she didn't stop rubbing until Steeljaw pulled his head away. "And if you get caught, I never saw you, I know nothing of your nefarious schemes, and I most certainly am not the first person you think of when you're looking for a place to hide."
She gave him a few kliks after he returned to the vents, then left her quarters. It wouldn't look suspicious for her to arrive a little early for her patrol; one of the conditions Jazz set in return for letting her occasionally avoid the buddy system on patrol was that she socialize without being forced into it, and even with the rec room to draw everyone, the control room was still a good place to find people to chat with for a few kliks. Showing up early for patrol also afforded her a built-in excuse to leave, which she strongly suspected made things easier for the other Autobots, as well as for herself.
Bulkhead was at the monitor station, a green mountain of 'oh Primus don't notice me, I'm not supposed to be here'. Shadow could have politely ignored that, said hi, chatted until she was sure Steeljaw was ready, and gone off on patrol...but what would have been the fun in that?
"Hi, Bulk," she said as she strolled up to him. (He actually jumped a little, which made her smile a little more cheerful, while she wondered if an inability to cover for anything was hard coded into frontliners.) "What'd you do to get busted onto monitors?" Her optics flicked up to Steeljaw's usual spot. "I thought Jaws was on duty this shift?"
Bulkhead jumped at Shadowrunner's voice - NOT guiltily, no, not at all, he just hadn't heard her because he wasn't paying attention... while on monitor duty... frag.
In his defense, monitor duty didn't usually require paying attention to sneaky spec ops builds creeping up behind you, so yes, there might have been jumping. Just not guilty jumping. None of that. Really.
Shadowrunner had a smile on her faceplates that was making glitchmice run circles around Bulkhead's fuel tank, and not in the fluttery way femmes were supposed to inspire. There was a lot less crystalwing and a lot more sharkticon in Shadow's expression, all sharp edges that communicated 'spec ops' and 'I know something you don't want me to' which... frag, frag, rust and slag, was probably not his imagination. Scrap.
"Ah, Shadow! Ah... heh... hi." Oh Primus, he was doomed. "I, ah... that is... I'm just, ah, waiting... I mean... Steeljaw went... ah..." Primus, he really really needed to just shut up now. Bulkhead twitched, shifting uneasily, trying to look anywhere but at Shadowrunner's overly interested optics. "Nothing! I mean, it's nothing, he just, um..."
What the frag was he supposed to say? Bulkhead sucked in a stuttered ventilation. "Look, it's not my fault," he told her in a rush. "Don't tell anyone, ok? It's not my fault, it was an accident and I felt like slag afterwards, I didn't mean to, but I stepped on the poor guy, just kinda tripped over him, I didn't see him, and I really didn't mean to! He said we'd call it even if I just covered this shift for him. That's all I know, I swear."
"You stepped on him? Again?" Shadow channeled all of her 'oh dear Primus I am not laughing' into sounding genuinely horrified and a little indignant. "Was he all right? You didn't just let him crawl off into the vents to deactivate, did you?"
Okay, that was over the top and she knew it, but Bulkhead was jittery enough he probably wouldn't notice, or would possibly chalk it up to Shadow over-reacting. She exvented hard, reining in her laughter temper. "He's bright gold and bigger than Miko; how do you not fragging see him?"
"NO!" Bulkhead was up from the chair and somehow Shadowrunner had gotten him backed up against the monitor console, even though she barely came to his shoulder and massed less than half what he did. He waved his hands in frantic denial. "No, no, not again, it was only the one ti- wait." Horror was crawling through his lines. "How do you even know about that? Does everyone know about that??"
The frontliner shushed her frantically before she could answer, hunched into his own plates and frantically looking around as though anyone else might appear to overhear his guilt. "Look, really, it was just the one time. That's all! He was behind me, I didn't see him. I think I stepped on his tail. I tried not to, do you think I wanted to? He doesn't make any sound! How was I supposed to know he was there?"
Bulkhead drew in an unsteady ventilation. "Look, he was fine afterwards. And we're good now, we're fine. He just wanted me to sit this shift for him, so I said sure, y'know? He probably just wanted a day off or something. That's all. Really."
Shadow gave Bulkhead a Look, one composed of equal parts You Are a Horrible Person and I Am Going to Break Into Hysterical Laughter If I Stop Glaring, debating mentally whether to charge the energon prod just a little bit more. But Bulkhead did seem to feel genuinely bad about the situation, and more importantly, Steeljaw had sent her a "ready" ping during the frontliner's frantic explanations.
"I guess if you and he have already worked things out," she said, a little doubt in her voice. "I just," she shook her head, turning toward the ground bridge controls and cycling the bridge open, "all the time you spend around humans, and you manage to step on one of our own. That's really low."
Just keep talking to the annoying femme, and pay no attention to the cat sneaking out through the ground bridge.
"I didn't MEAN to!" Primus, the way Shadowrunner said it made it sound like Bulkhead deliberately went around trying to step on defenseless smaller mechs. "And Miko knows better than to stand directly behind my pedes!"
No, wait. That sounded horrible. Bulkhead grimaced, hands waving aimlessly through the air. "No, I mean, that's not... the only reason I stepped on anything was because his tail..." Oh Primus, that was worse. It was like he had utterly lost the off setting for his vocalizer and Shadow had him so flustered that everything was coming out jumbled up and turned around, and her glare at him just kept getting worse and the words kept coming out even MORE wrong. "No! No, that wasn't what I meant, it's just-"
And then something dropped from the ceiling and what came out of Bulkhead's vocalizer was... well, it wasn't quite a shriek, not really, or at least not the type of shriek reserved for scraplets and other horrific forms of optic devouring deactivation that you could see coming, but it was a little higher pitched and more yelp-like than normal.
Last Edit: May 7, 2012 20:55:21 GMT -5 by bulkhead