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 went still at his touch. No flinching, no attempt to escape, training locking down the things she wanted to do almost before they could cross her processor. Resistance was not an option. Resistance was never an option; they were his, they didn't have the right...
Jazz steadied her through it, voice and field pressing for her attention, catching and holding and easing her past the incipient panic and despair. Jazz, who was an impossible cipher but who had yet to use anything he'd learned against her. Jazz, who already knew where she went; it was only a matter of time before he figured out the rest of it.
If she was cooperative enough now, maybe he wouldn't feel the need to do anything.
With a shaky exvent, Shadow leaned her helm against his. "I can show you," she said, voice low and vocalizer clicking with the desire to drop into Basic. "Where I go. I can show you."
<<OOC: At this point, Shadow's worked her way back to about 70% okay: not great, but probably okay enough that Jazz shouldn't feel the need to change the subject, as it's still a faster and more complete recovery than he would have gotten when he first started working with her.>>
Getting better, Jazz observed. She was still seeing Lab more than him at the moment, he was willing to bet, but though she was still terrified for some reason (what could she have been doing that she thought he'd disapprove of so much?), she'd eased back from that initial panic. Some, at least.
His instinct months ago would have been to back off, to reassure her that no, she didn't need to share that with him and try to explain why. That, though, was part and parcel of what had not been working. It was best to see these things through, to DEMONSTRATE that he not only wasn't angry, but that the thing she was afraid of was not going to happen. It left her, Jazz suspected, merely thinking that Jazz was being inexplicable and perhaps likely to get angry LATER over something she couldn't fathom, but it at least gave her data points to extrapolate from. And, Jazz was learning, what most other mechs would see as an invasion of their privacy was...not, for Shadow. Which was not ideal, but re-teaching her the concept of personal space and privacy was a slow process.
So, instead he pulsed calming reassurance at her and said, "I'd like that. Shhh, hon, it's all RIGHT. I am not angry with you, and I WILL NOT be angry with you over this. I promise."
There was, Jazz supposed, the possibility that she was running some kind of black market assassination and puppy smuggling ring out of rural Africa, but he doubted it.
Another klik of holding on, bracing herself for a lightning-swift change of mood that didn't come. Which didn't necessarily mean it wouldn't come later...
Shadow vented hard and stepped back, solvent flicking off her plates as she reached for the mesh toweling on a nearby hook. Cooperate, yield, appease...didn't always work, but Jazz wasn't Labyrinth, Jazz was cohort, and Jazz was promising he wouldn't be angry.
Jazz had not, as far as Shadow knew, lied to her yet.
She led the way back to the control room, tanks churning with a dread she refused to show; she didn't want questions, or attention, or delays, now that she was committed. She just wanted the outcome, however bad, over and done with. With that in mind, she entered the bridge coordinates, bare and vulnerable without the scrambler she normally used. Only when the bridge had flared to life did she manage to look at Jazz, half wary and half hopeful, before folding into her alt mode and leading the way through.
The coordinates were for, predictably, the Middle of Nowhere, Botswana. Once the bridge collapsed behind them, Jazz's scanners picked up nothing but a lot of grass, some trees in the distance, and some other random wildlife.
Nothing to warrant him being angry with Shadow about, certainly, even in what he could piece together of her reasoning. She had seemed comfortable with taking her off-duty time, and if she wanted to take that time in Africa as opposed to Nevada, well, they had the energon for it.
The only thing that happened was that one of the larger animals, a large feline, headed their way.
Maybe he was still missing something. Jazz waited, coming to a stop when Shadow did. "Nice spot," he said, and it was. The wind picked up, and the grass rippled under the touch like nothing on Cybertron ever could.
"It really is," Shadow said distractedly. Spot, predictable as this planet's rotation, was approaching, with an intermittent hop in his stride that told her he had likely been chasing things he wasn't ready to chase.
Jazz couldn't have missed Spot's approach, but he didn't seem to have instantly recognized what it meant. It would have been nice to leave things like that, really, but if she didn't give things away, Spot would do it for her. Probably by climbing up on her hood, where she couldn't readily protect him if Jazz...reacted badly.
Stifling the dread that wanted to seep into her EM, Shadow did one last sensor sweep and transformed. "It might be best for you to stay in your alt, at least for now," she said quietly. "He's never been this close to anyone but me."
Shadow could, if she had wanted to, have picked Spot up where he stood. Instead, she settled into the tall grass and waited the few nanokliks it took the cheetah to decide that the presence of a strange Cybertronian was acceptable.
"I found him near where Rhinox crashed," she explained, optics fixed on Spot as he began rubbing against her shin guard. "He was hurt, and I figured he was going to die anyway, but..." A shrug. "I figured I could at least leave him near water, maybe give him a fighting chance. Then Raf asked about him, and it seemed like it couldn't hurt just to check."
And somehow she had wound up combing the internet for wound care advice beyond "take your pet to the vet", and working out just how far she needed to dial back her blasters to drop the local wildlife in a form Spot still considered edible. Neither of which Jazz really needed to know.
"He still isn't completely healed," she said instead, scooping the cheetah up in both hands. Spot, familiar with this move from regular inspections of the wound on his hind leg, stretched across her palm and rubbed his chin against the edge of her wrist plating. "I try to make sure he gets fed, but I'm not sure he'll ever be able to hunt properly."
Rubbing a careful fingertip over the scar on the cat's hip, Shadow finally shifted her optics to Jazz, admitting quietly, "This is what I've been doing here."
Last Edit: Feb 18, 2013 18:11:03 GMT -5 by Deleted
Jazz would have blinked, if he'd been able to in alt form.
Watching Shadow with the cheetah was much like a million billion videos on the internet of humans petting and being owned by their cats. The size difference was even close to right.
Shadow had a PET. A pet that she'd nursed back to health and earned its trust and which was now PURRING at her like an overgrown housecat.
It was ADORABLE.
And Shadow was still looking at him like she was expecting him to hurt her. Or, from the way she was not-quite shifting to get between him and the cheetah....
Frag. Of course. Labyrinth would have SO approved of a pet, or really anything outside of the cohort that Shadow cherished enough to spend so much time on.
"He's beautiful, and you're a great mecha to take care of him like that, Shadow." Jazz released his brakes, letting himself inch slowly closer with the slope of the land. "That a good thing for you to do. You didn't have to, but it was a good call."
He let his approval show in his voice and glyph choices, then humor. "Does Steeljaw know that he's got competition for the title of your feline overlord?"
Jazz was moving closer...but slowly, still in his alt, nothing threatening in his approach or his field. Shadow relaxed bit by bit, first at the praise, and then more at the teasing.
"If Jaws knew, he'd have already disowned me for fear of fleas." As it was, she was surprised the symbiont still spent time with her, for all the complaints she got about things that came home wedged in her seams.
When Jazz still made no threatening moves, Shadow dared to set Spot in her lap, only to promptly endure an awkward clamber up her arm. Blunt claws were no worse suited for climbing metal than sharp ones, and Shadow's frame was angular enough to give him purchase; after a bit of scrambling, the cheetah finally settled between her shoulder guard and neck, legs flopped comfortably front and back. With a huff of amused exasperation, Shadow reached up to pet him with her other hand. "Cheetahs aren't supposed to like to climb, but Spot doesn't have internet access."
A beat, embarrassment slipping into her field as she looked at Jazz again. "I had to call him something. And it's descriptive, at least."
"That it is," Jazz said soberly. "He seems to like it well enough." His glyphs turned conspiratorial. "And see, of COURSE you chose it in a tongue-in-cheek way. That is your story, and you should stick to it."
He also considered the cheetah and the savanna around them. "Ahaha, yeah, I can't see Jaws being quite as appreciative as we are. See, Spot, you can take pride in the fact that if you ever met your vicious Cybertronian equivalent, that you could probably send him running by, I dunno, sneezing on him or something."
Jazz stopped his roll still a good distance away from them. He wasn't AS fond of organic wildlife as Shadow evidently was, but he was a nosy mech, and he had to admit that he was curious. "Do you think he'd be ok if I transformed? I can do it further away, if you don't want to spook him."
And if Jazz was recording how Spot was attempting to groom down some of Shadow's helm finials, well...who could blame him?
"Spot has fleas," Shadow said. "I'm sure you can imagine how Steeljaw would react to that, even though they've shown no interest in Cybertronian metals or fluids. I mean, given Jaws' track record on Earth, they'd probably change their diet just for him."
She paused for a moment, considering the question, the honest curiosity in Jazz's field, and the likelihood of this all being an act. There was no reason for Jazz to go to so much effort, though, and a part of her wanted to show Spot off. "He's seen me transform more than once, and it only seemed to startle him the first few times. The worst he's likely to do if you startle him is fall off me, and it's not like he hasn't done that before." She gave Jazz a mock-somber look. "Cats do NOT always land on their feet."
"I SEE. Well. Another myth dispelled, then. And FLEAS? Oh dear, fleas." Jazz gave the glyph equivalent of a sad shake of the head.
Jazz backed off a bit and initiated the slowest transformation he could without overbalancing and falling over in an undignified pile of parts. It was not soundless by any means, but he was aiming to be, if not quiet, at least predictable. He straightened slowly and paused on his feet, staying still and as unthreatening as a Cybertronian could look to a small organic mammal.
"See," he continued evenly, "Spot would OBVIOUSLY win. He and his army of small invertebrates. We'd never get Jaws out of the base ever again. Possibly never off the ceiling."
"Spot lives outside. Which, as Jaws will tell you, is the Pit incarnate filled entirely with things that want to invade a symbiont's systems. Spot is obviously a menace, and the ceiling is the only safe place."
The menace in question had sat up when Jazz transformed, crouching with his front paws braced on Shadow's chassis as if debating whether he was safer high or low. Shadow reached up, giving him a platform to easily climb down from her shoulder to her lap, and let him settle again next to her knee.
"Jazz isn't going to hurt you," Shadow said to the cat, hoping she was right. She went back to petting, until Spot settled enough to bump his head against her hand, then looked up to where Jazz was patiently waiting. "I think he'll be okay, if you want to pet him."
Jazz grinned. He was, as anyone who knew him for any length of time could tell you, a sensualist. Of COURSE he wanted to pet the kitty. Fleas and all.
He moved closer, slowly. "Hiya, Spot. My name is Jazz. I hope that Shadow hasn't told you too many bad things about me, as I'm really not as bad as m'cohort keeps insisting I am. Besides, Shadow's a bit biased. She evidently thinks that I'm a glitchscrap. Don't know why, of course. I'm a perfectly respectable mech and a really...friendly...guy."
Jazz slowly came to a rest across from Shadow, sitting cross-legged in the grass. He reached out very, very slowly, fingers mostly curled. "Don't mind the claws, Spot. Mine aren't retractable like yours."
"Spot's claws aren't retractable, either. Cheetahs are weird."
Which Jazz could google if he cared, but it gave Shadow something to fill the silence while she turned his words over, trying to decide if they were meant as a joke, or a warning. She...tried to behave, when she couldn't avoid him. Apparently, she just hadn't done a very good job. And Jazz was Labyrinth both CO and cohort; she couldn't avoid him completely.
She didn't want to have to avoid him completely.
She shoved those thoughts aside, focusing on Spot as he went from carefully sniffing Jazz's hand to bumping his head against it, rubbing first one side of his face, then the other, against a knuckle plate.
"Congratulations. I think this means he owns you."
"Well, then," Jazz said, slowly opening his hand so that there was more sensors (and more joints to get fur into) available. The cheetah's fur was an intriguing mix of brushy and soft. "Better hope that Steeljaw doesn't find out. Don't worry," he assured Spot, who seemed entirely unworried, "it'll just be our little secret."
Jazz lowered himself down to one elbow, stretching out on the ground so he could still pet the cheetah and lean into Shadow's field. She was still worried, and every time he moved near Spot, she tensed. Jazz leaned his helm back and to the side to rest against her thigh and look up at her. "He's great. Why didn't you want me to know about him? Afraid I wouldn't approve of you having a pet?"
"I shouldn't have a pet," Shadow said, too surprised by the question to overcome the habit of answering cohort honestly and protest that Spot wasn't her pet at all. "I should..." have let him die, or put him out of his misery. Not wasted time and resources on keeping him alive.
"We aren't here to salvage the local wildlife." The words came out quiet and flat. "I don't have any right to waste my time on him, I just...didn't want to stop. But I will, if you tell me to, because I don't want you to have to stop me. Spot doesn't deserve to die because I'm stupid/willful/stubborn."