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.
She slammed her right hand against the wall and roared, a high wail of grief that snarled into a growl of bitterness, frustration and desperation.
She slid down onto her knees, banging her fists against both walls in the corner once more, leaving an imprint of her servos dented into the walls.
"NO MATTER WHAT I DID, I COULDN'T SAVE ANYONE! ALL I DID WAS DELAY THE INEVITABLE!"
"I SUFFERED AND BLED AND KILLED AND TORTURED AND ATE DIRT FOR THE WAR ON BOTH SIDES AND NOTHING I DID CHANGED ANYTHING!"
"WE'RE PART OF A DEAD RACE WAITING TO STARVE TO DEATH!"
Her fists drug against the wall with the screech of metal against metal, dropping to the floor.
"...we're no better than those poor derelicts on Velocitron waitin' for their sun to go nova. Nothing matters anymore. It's all venting in the wind," Shiftlock groaned miserably.
From behind Shiftlock there came the sound of a chair easing back. Then, the soft tread of footsteps.
A hand gently touched her shoulder.
"It's never for nothing," said Smokescreen. He crouched behind her, his head bent to get a better look at her face. Though she could have crushed him with ease if her distress were to run wild and ignite - and he had to know that - no fear of her showed in either his expression or his manner. He regarded her with a gravity that spoke of respect for her grief, and his field radiated kindness.
"In a long, cruel war where everyone involved knows that the inevitable is more often than not a death that is either swift or torturous, any delay - any suspension of that grim fate is a blessing," he said. "For a while you eased the suffering of those you protected. That is better than most of us can claim. I don't think anyone short of Primus himself can save or end our race. I don't presume to suggest that even the Autobots have that power right now. The war is too big for us to stand in front of it with a hand upraised and believe we can stop its momentum."
He shook his head lightly. "Maybe one day we will. But even now, after millions of years, I think the best we can do is look out for those we can and do what we can to just, well... keep delaying the inevitable. Things will change one day. But they certainly won't if we give up along the way."
"I failed them. I failed my team. I was supposed to keep the alive, and I couldn't do it."
Shiftlock tried to avoid eye contact with Smokescreen. She didn't want anyone to see her like this, weak and pitiful and pathetic. She hated herself like this, but she couldn't stop it from gushing out of her. She tried to pull her field in close and keep it hidden as much as was possible.
For a moment she wished Whirl were there to mock her pain, beat her, tell her to get back on her pedes and stop whining like a little glitch. She could take that.
This was unfolding layers and layers of rejection, misery, isolation and emptiness, exposing things that did not want to come out into the light. This was reaching into the Shadow and pulling out your reflection, confronting everything in yourself that you pretended did not exist.
"Everyone else in the caste system, you know, they got a function. They got somethin' handed down to them, even if they hated it. I got nothing. There was no cohort, no job, no trainin', no place in anything. I was sent to the smelters before I could even start to live!"
She slammed her fist into the wall again, leaving a bigger dent.
"There's nothing in me, Smokescreen! I'm still an Empty! I thought that maybe if I could help keep others from bein' like me, livin' like me, then maybe I'd know what I was made for. Maybe then I'd have some function t' know why I exist. I tried t' protect others."
Her engine revved up, frame rattling, plates rising like hackles in barely contained rage. "But I was wrong! If I can't even keep three Autobots alive long enough t' make it to this scumball rock, maybe the guild masters were right. Maybe I deserved t' be smelted."
Last Edit: Mar 22, 2013 12:52:10 GMT -5 by Deleted
Smokescreen raised a brow at that, though his manner remained calm.
"It seems to me," he said, "that anyone who suggests killing another, even as part of the usual repertoire of empty threats wielded by your basic drill sergeant type, probably is not someone with an opinion worth listening to, and is a poor voice of authority on top of that. Don't let a few guild masters define your self-worth for you. There is one other thing I would like you to think about..."
He patted her shoulder, despite the way her armour seemed to bristle with static.
"Have you considered that maybe you don't have the final authority to determine who lives and dies in a war that has already claimed thousands before us?" he said. "You can determine your own role, your own actions, you can act out upon them to the very best of your ability - but in the end even Optimus can't determine who will live and who will die. Thousands of Autobots have died over the course of the war under his authority and umbrella of protection. Would you blame those deaths on him, or would you say that those Autobots had their own responsibility to protect - or throw away - their lives as they saw fit? Would you blame him for every poor twist of fate, for the abyssal spinning wheel that we can only grasp as luck? For every spark extinguished for simply being in the wrong place at the wrong time?"
He paused. He said, with a trace of levity, "If there really is a Primus, I think only he can claim to be that final authority. And if Prime tried too, well... I have a few nice chemicals I would probably prescribe to him."
Shiftlock's door-wings lowered along with her plates, accompanied by a hissing sigh of pent up heat and ozone. Her whole body released tension as if she were melting into the floor. Hunched forward she pressed the top of her helm to the corner, staring down at her servos.
She realized in that moment that she had been trying desperately to control her existence - to stop the constant stalking death that had hounded her from her sparking by forcing it away from others. She had been stuck in survivalist mode for so long that her continued existence seemed to be a quiet affirmation of miraculous immortality - and her survival as a Wrecker to this day only reinforced that faulty notion.
She was undefeatable despite all odds, and she had gone to the extreme of assuming she could make anyone under her protection as immortal as she imagined herself to be.
And then Feint, Dirt Drop and Clutch Kick had died.
The reality of her own frail mortality and the crushing blow of the loss of those closest to her had all but destroyed her. For a time it had - she had simply slipped into incoherent, berserk rage. She only had dim recollection of how many bodies she'd left on Velocitron. What haunted her most is that she could not be sure she had killed only Decepticons.
She was suddenly ashamed of herself. Her team would have gone down fighting, worrying over her safety. They would have gone through the same hell she did to see that the other members were safe. Were they helpless sparklings that could do nothing without her - or were they hardened, well-trained soldiers, ready to step into the Wrecker ranks at any time, who had simply been taken in a moment of unavoidable weakness? To remember them as mewling children was a sickening disgrace. They would have gone down the way she would have - spitting in their captors' optics and exacting a heavy price for their own lives.
No, they would have died like warriors. She had done all she could do to prepare them. They had known the risks when they agreed to come under her leadership. Like Springer who had given her a choice - she had given them a choice.
"I loved them, you know," she said quietly to Smokescreen, her EMF slowly creeping back out of her frame. "They were like my own bitlets. We knew each other inside and out." She allowed herself a small chuckle. "I suppose Clutch knew the insides better than most, he was our medic -- and I don't quite know what I'm going to do with myself now that they're gone. It was my job to teach them and train them. Show them everything I'd learned when it came to surviving on nothing: how to find safe energon, fix small wounds yourself, hidden underground passages in the big polities, how to make friends with a wild Insecticon hive - stuff they would need to know to make it when things got really bad. They were all warsparked Autobots - they'd never seen Cybertron before everything went to slag..."
Shiftlock turned and suddenly hugged Smokescreen.
"I know you don't give a scrap about me," she said quietly. "But can you fake it for a few klicks? I just need to pretend someone gives a damn so I can get back on my pedes and get on with my life."
Last Edit: Mar 23, 2013 13:24:25 GMT -5 by Deleted
He was not prepared for that - he had knelt on one knee behind her and simply listened, allowing her description of her dear friends fill his mind with a fuzzy picture of what she had to be seeing within her own - and for a moment Smokescreen was startled to find her arms around him and her ragged field meshed against his.
But he recovered quickly and his response was immediately. He returned the hug, with warmth and a reassuring firmness against her arms that said without words, you're here. Alive. And I'm here too.
"Hey, I give a scrap about everybody," he said, and the smile was easy to hear in his voice. "Even those who barely acknowledge I'm around, ha ha. I know it feels like the world has dropped out from underneath your feet at the moment, but believe me - it's still there, and it will wait for you to find your footing upon it again for as long as you need it to. There are other people who are glad to wait as well. I'm only one of them. And I'm here to help."
With his hands on her shoulders Smokescreen drew back slightly, enough that he could see her face. He was smiling.
"More than that though, I'm here to be a friend," he said. "You need quarters, you need an alt mode - whatever you need to figure out life here on Earth, I'm always around to put heads together and make plans with. I'd be honoured. And when you feel like talking about them, I'd love to hear more about your team. Your friends. You all must have collected an amazing array of stories together with them. I'd love to hear those too. Maybe... not the ones about the Insecticons though. I will be honest with you: between you and me, Insecticons might kind of creep me out a little. A little. Allegedly."
Shiftlock let Smokescreen go and laughed softly, her EMF weak, but stable. She felt like she was made of sponge and utterly drained of energon.
"Thanks. I don't know how, but I'm gonna repay you someday. One good turn deserves another, right? Not sure if bein' friends is a good idea. My friends don't seem to have long lifespans."
The femme began trying to compose herself with long, slow intakes of cold air, bringing her temperature down. Placing hands on knees, she shuttered her optics and completed a quick internal diagnostic to make sure she hadn't stressed anything with the force of her emotions.
"Th' Doc says I need to get a native vehicle. I'm not really lookin' forward to it, but orders are orders. If you know a place where I can find somethin' that's fast, has a good center of gravity and can slide around a hairpin turn, I'd appreciate it."