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.
<<Set semi-immediately after Metroplex and Perceptor make first contact with the base in mid-late 1.5. I'm gonna assume here that Jazz and Shadow came back from patrol and were semi-immediately filled in on current events, though we can skip that to prevent dragging others in. Assume this is after that, when they are heading further into the base, so it happens mostly as they're ambling down the corridors?>>
Jazz nearly danced down the corridor. Metroplex! Alive! Coming here! He grinned. "Oh man, this is such good news. I mean, getting the influx of new 'bots like we have is awesome, but Metroplex? Totally super awesome. I mean, Fowler is going to actually birth kittens over him, but still! After the Exodus...."
And wasn't THAT a sobering thought? Frag, that had been a bad time. And after Metroplex had turned the tide like he had, there hadn't been an Autobot on the Ark who hadn't felt some degree of bad about leaving the cityformer behind. It hadn't been fair. It'd been all they could do...but it hadn't been fair.
Just like so much of the war, really.
Jazz shook his helm. "After the Exodus...well." He grinned again. "He's going to have a really kick-aft story to tell, that's for sure."
Shadow had remained mostly quiet while she followed Jazz (possibly toward the washracks...possibly toward the rec room...possibly he was just taking turns at complete random), in large part because she wasn't sure she'd ever seen him like this, with no sign he was aware of and playing to his audience, and she didn't want to draw his attention back to her. Now, though, he seemed to be winding down a little, even if his field was still vibrating with excitement.
"You knew him pretty well?" she asked, grinning back at him; it was impossible for that much pure glee not to be contagious. "So, what's he likely to do to set Fowler off?"
Jazz pivoted to look at her, his visor flickering in the equivalent of a blink before realizing that, why no, Jazz, Shadow had not been there and likely didn't know Metroplex from a hole in the ground. He gestured in the air something like an apoplectic bird.
"Metroplex...he's a legend! A...well, we thought he was a martyr, basically. Mech gave the last of the energon in his tanks so that we could power the Ark and blast off of Cybertron. We're HERE because of him. " Jazz's glyphs and tone took on well-earned gratitude and the particular type of reverence that great sacrifices require. He, like everyone else on the Ark, had honored Metroplex as a fallen comrade and ally who had given his life in the name of the Autobot cause.
"And what's he likely to do?" Jazz grinned. "Exist, mostly! Mech's a cityformer. He's HUGE. Like...the size of Las Vegas huge. Maybe even bigger, if he spreads out and gets comfortable. No IDEA how he could set down and not be noticed. Mech or city form, he's MASSIVE."
Jazz couldn't help but grin even harder at that. Metroplex, who'd single handedly turned the tide of the last battles of Cybertron...here. Jazz would give ridiculous amounts of money, energon, sexual favors, WHATEVER, to see the look on the Decepticon High Command's faces when they found that out.
Shadow had heard of cityformers. Almost entirely in negatives; a living, sentient city was nothing more than a mass of problems and complications, as far as Labyrinth had been concerned. They had also been high-priority targets, most of them falling early in the war. The closest Shadow had ever come to one involved a meeting in a recently bombed-out husk, back before so much of Cybertron was destroyed that the planet became...almost irrelevant, the important parts of the war raging far and wide across planetary systems.
She hadn't thought any cityformers survived to the latter days of the war, certainly not up to the point where Cybertron had gone dark. She certainly hadn't expected to hear that one had been so instrumental in getting the Prime away from their dead world.
Mostly, she was having trouble reconciling her own ingrained mistrust with Jazz's obvious delight.
"I guess Fowler can be forgiven for being a little upset if an entire city shows up one day, regardless of how public his arrival is." Shadow frowned, then focused most of her attention back on Jazz. "You didn't really answer my question. Did you know him, or just the legend? Not that I'm complaining about the mech who got you off Cybertron alive, I'm just...curious."
<<Jazz's story here differs significantly from the actual FoC game. I wrote his backstory long before FoC came out, and I'm having to mangle it some to make Metroplex's background and Jazz's fit. *waves hands*>>
Jazz's field sobered a bit. "Was away on a mission when it all went down, unfortunately, so I didn't see any of it personally. Heard it from a unit that'd seen most of it and heard the rest, though." Jazz wandered a few more steps down the hall as he thought, then turned to speak again...while walking backwards.
He explained how Metroplex had been assumed dead in city form for vorn, lost on the outskirts of Iacon for so long that few remembered his structure was even there. When the Autobots were building the Ark in an attempt to flee the planet, the Decepticons had attacked them and the unfinished ship relentlessly. Optimus Prime, in attempting to defend the Ark, had restored power to a section of Metroplex's structure. As Metroplex had been powered, Optimus Prime had gotten much more than the artillery battery that he'd been attempting to bring online.
"Evidently the sight of Metroplex--a whole CITY, remember--transforming and STANDING UP in bipedal form was pretty awesome. He helped Prime defend the Ark...Pit, he even squashed--literally! squashed! like, with his hand!--Megatron at one point."
Jazz smiled at the image. He'd never come across anyone who'd had original vid memories of that, but he had high hopes that he might be able to tease them out of someone one day.
"Anyway, the important part is that when the Ark was ready to launch, the 'Bots didn't have enough energy to power it. Metroplex offered the last of the energon from his tanks so that Prime and the rest of the Autobots could launch. Everyone thought he was dead, after that."
"And now...." Jazz spread his hands and grinned. "Mech's gotta have one Pit of a story."
Someone he'd heard of, then, rather than someone he knew. Shadow supposed it didn't really matter, not after this long, and not when she knew, firsthand, how little it really meant for one mecha to vouch for another.
She could see why Jazz was practically glitching with excitement, though. The idea of a city rising up to fight struck her as equal parts horrifying and awe-inspiring, but for something - someone - powerful enough to crush Megatron under his hand to voluntarily sacrifice himself...well, it was hard to find any ulterior motive in that. Even if he hadn't stayed down any more than Megatron had.
No reason to mention any of that to Jazz, though. Shadow grinned at him instead. "So what you're saying is you're a huge fanboy and you want his autograph. And to be on the receiving end of story time for once."
Jazz laughed. "Pit, yeah!" He turned around a few times, almost dancing down the hall before slide-stepping to a halt. "Any mech who has actually crushed Megatron beneath his hand gets the thumbs-up and a hand-shake from me."
His grin turned back into a slightly sad smile. "Besides. We all are willing to give our lives for the cause, but Metroplex got a really raw deal. Beat up, left for dead...then everyone forgets about you, so when you ARE revived, it's by ACCIDENT. You get up, turn the tide of the war, save everyone's afts, and then you give up everything you've got left so that everyone else can escape and leave you behind to die again. That's dedication, right there."
Jazz shrugged, field turning wry. "Programming, too, because hey, that's the kind of thing cityformers are supposed to do, but still...dedication. Mech was a real hero."
Shadow regarded him thoughtfully, because that...put a very different spin on what cityformers were. She had been trained to view them as obstacles - it was hard to go unnoticed when the city around you was alive and watching, and Labyrinth had been vehement about never attempting an assassination within cityformer limits. She had never quite stopped to consider that the flip side of those obstacles was a city-sized protector.
"I don't know anything about cityformers; most of them were destroyed before any of us got sent to Cybertron." The glyphs shaded the words with a not-quite-request for information. "But programming or not, I don't think anyone could argue with calling him a hero."
Jazz smiled, waiting for her to catch up and then bumping shoulders companionably with her as they continued down the hall. "Same way with me. They were military installations, and I never lived in one, so I don't know too much about them, myself, other than what I've heard. They're big. They're powerful. They need a pitload of energon when they run at full capacity. What else...oh, they're insanely loyal, most of the time. Pretty chill, too. I suppose they've got to be, what with sitting in citymode most of the time and letting folks live in 'em."
Jazz tink-tinked a knuckle against the wall of the corridor. "Don't know whether living inside a mech'd be cool or kinda weird, personally. On the one hand, always someone watching your back. On the other hand...always someone watching...period!"
Shadow returned the friendly shoulder bump, but still slanted a glance at Jazz, not sure there was any part of living inside another mech that didn't qualify as weird. Of course, Jazz liked having other mecha around, in proximity and numbers that made Shadow's plates twitch just thinking about it. She probably shouldn't be surprised.
Shifting the conversation, she asked, "Once Metroplex gets here, and Fowler finishes yelling, and we find some place to fit an entire city...any ideas how to handle the energon issue? It'd be a shame for him to come all this way and drop into stasis for lack of fuel."
Playfully, she nudged against Jazz's side with a little grin. "And while I'm asking questions, are we actually going somewhere, or just touring the base until your fanboy glee is expended?"
Jazz drew himself up in mock-offense. He then ruined the effect (such as it was) by following it up with, "As IF! We, young lady, are heading to the rec room, where we will RECREATE in some fashion." He tilted his helm at her. "Unless you've got something less frivolous you've been planning on doing?"
"And while I'm answering questions, I've got no idea what the energon situation's going to be. I mean...I don't even know how the original cityformers were fueled." Jazz thought about it as they turned the last corner to the rec room. "I'm pretty sure that there were a few that were self-sufficient, but I don't know how or why. Or maybe he's got some refineries? We ARE talking a whole city. Who knows what kind of facilities he's got." He shrugged. "Either way...I hope he's bringing something else to the table, because yeah...right now we sure can't keep him fueled."
"I've just been following you around. Trying to learn from your great dignity and reserve."
Or maybe trying to absorb some of his enthusiasm, while she tried to work out her own reaction to the news there was an actual Cybertronian city on his way to Earth. Not that Metroplex was her problem - or Jazz's, really, barring something horrific like the Decepticons getting control of the cityformer. That didn't stop her from wondering, as much because Metroplex was yet another unknown quantity, as because it really would be awful to lose him for lack of fuel.
Shadow didn't know how she felt about Metroplex's pending arrival, but she knew she didn't want that to happen.
The rec room was near enough to empty that Shadow didn't hesitate as they entered, in spite of Rattrap's presence in one corner of the room. "Do you have plans for this recreating you mentioned?" she asked. "Or do you intend this frivolity to be spontaneous and unscripted?"
Jazz tilted his chin up in affected snootiness, answering, "Why, frivolity is best when spontaneous, don't you think? I did, of course, have a few suggestions. RECOMMENDED frivolity, you understand, given the place, time, available equipment, etc. etc. I thought perhaps a spot of lobbing or some partaking of human entertainment might occur."
Jazz gestured grandiosely at the lobbing shot and the TV at the appropriate places, then bowed to Shadow gracefully. "Unless, of course, you have an idea for how we might accomplish our frivolity? I am, of course open to spontaneous and unscripted suggestions. If you had some frivolity planned, perhaps I could partake as well?"
"I," said Shadow with an equally grandiose air, "am boycotting lobbing until such time as you reconsider allowing us to lob Rattrap." She arched an optic ridge at him. "There may be a petition in the works."
The pretentious tone dropped, replaced by something not-quite-wheedling. "And if I may remind you, there is a not-that-old-and-who-has-time-to-play-anyway World of Warcraft expansion out. New races. New character classes. New weapons to acquire and new monsters to defeat."
She leaned in close, whispering in his audial. "New animals, Jazz. New fish."
"InDEED!" Jazz shuffled her over to one of the couches, sitting down next to her. "Flying Tiger Gourami and Mimic Octopuses and yet more chances to snag my old nemesis, the Sea Turtle!" Jazz shook his fist at the air. His longstanding war with the RNG to get a Sea Turtle mount was legendary in the pools and coastal waters of Azeroth.
Jazz leaned back on Shadow and grinned as he logged in. It had been awhile, and he didn't even remember where he'd been last...ah, yes, he'd been farming Lavascale Catfish for Seafood Magnifique Feasts. "I suppose that your interest has NOTHING to do with the new pet battling features? How many, exactly, HAVE you caught?"