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.
Optimus stared in the direction of Barricade's disappearance for quit some time before finally hobbling back through the ground bridge. At some point he pinged the release code for the the status cuffs and, once back in the base, he tossed them against one far wall with a bit more force than necessary.
Stupid! He felt so stupid! Barricade, that dangerous, deadly mech, had managed to slip right through his fingers! 'Or did you just let him go?' a small bitter voice inside him sniped. 'Do you really have the bearings to carry out what you threatened? What needed to be done. Are you really fit to lead a ~war~??'
Troubled, confused, and more than slightly guilty he did as he often did when conflicted: he quietly made his way deep into the base, letting his legs carry them where they would. The others would realize their prisoner was missing soon and would demand answers.
Frankly he wasn't sure what he would be able to tell them.
Bumblebee came out of literally nowhere it seemed, as his function class was wont to do. Though the hall had seemed empty, the scout was suddenly directly in front of Optimus, comparatively tiny and yellow, but his EMF boiled black and red and ragged around his frame, shivering off his plates so intensely the bot himself was buzzing with anger. He shook with the force of anger inside him, that same red-hot clutch of heat that had, a few days ago, prompted him to punch Dipper in the face for the crime of a few mis-spoken words. Now, now though, given a very real reason to be angry he couldn’t remember what grace felt like. He only had this deep, carnal intimacy with hatred.
‘You let, BARRICADE, go! The only mech that might have intell, Megatron’s Primus slotting infiltrator, the monster who almost killed Bluestreak and that human and done so much wrong and you let him go!’ Bee shook his head, servos balled to fists. ‘Why!? I don’t understand why! Is being good/moral/right so important that we have to die/breakdown/terminate for it!?’
The sudden and violent interruption to Optimus' already turbulent thoughts nearly had Optimus' battle protocols roaring to life. He only just managed to catch himself before accidentally blasting a hole in the little mech his systems were only half registering as ally. When what Bee had actually ~said~ finally registered, it was as if the bottom of his tank had simply fallen from his chassis. He could only stand before the scout, spark pulsing as if it had been physically torn in half.
He wanted to know the same thing. He wanted to know why he'd hesitated, why he felt he felt so conflicted about leveling his weapon at his enemy's head, why the ~matrix~ had whispered to him, stilled his hand and allowed the mech to escape. He was trying to protect his people, their way of life. That was Right, was it not?
The blood and gruesome images of the dark primes and their massive slaughter campaigns carried out in the name of Primus flashed though his mind once again, unbidden. Mechblood splattered against walls as mech were forced to their knees and had their sparks shot out. The way they cried out, for mercy, for justice echoed in Prime's audios, almost as if he had been there, were there now. Bodies littered the ground and it had all been in the name of 'Right'. He couldn't tell if it was the Matrix or his own spark that throbbed.
'It wasn't that,' he once again told the Matrix, told himself. 'I was protecting my people. He was an enemy, this is war.'
It didn't stop the ache. 'Then why did you let him go?' Another part of him asked. He didn't have an answer for it.
Then another memory, this time one of his own, from a news feed he'd seen, long, long ago, one that, in another lifetime, had insensed him to the point of spuring him to rise from his established position and fight for justice and mercy, flashed before his mind's eye and he cringed inward.
'Hyprocrite..'
To Bumblebee he also said nothing, couldn't say anything, could only stare blank opticed past the mech standing before him as his mind warred and his spark split in two.
Bee couldn’t remember rage like this, like a fever in his head and in his spark and he couldn’t shake the heat and almost beyond his control the words lunged out of him, laced with glyphs of rage, and betrayal and the sub-sets of something that could of been hatred. (What? How could that be?) Like his had happened before. Like this were an old wound, not a fresh disloyalty.
‘You remember how Megatron is in my fragging head right? That he’s there because I did I mind body split to save *you*! I still have it! He ripped me apart in my own head but I got the data we needed! Like I’m supposed to! Like a scout and your job/function/purpose is to use that intell to save us!’
Bee’s EMF spiked hard, eyes flaring white, overclocking and paling out for a moment with rage. ‘So why did you let him go?! This weapon will kill everyone! Me, Raf, Jack, our family/team/everyone! Why is that not cost enough? Why!?’ And when Optimus didn’t immediately answer Bee shouted (though he didn’t know why, because he didn’t intend to). ‘Why are you betraying us/me?!’.
Last Edit: Dec 2, 2011 17:51:14 GMT -5 by bumblebee
He was their leader, their ~Prime~, the avatar of their god. His word should have been law, his actions indisputable.A single word from him should have sent his men scrambling to obey, an angry look should have had them cowering,Actually questioning his actions unthinkable, not simply treason, but blasphemy! The Prime answered to no one, for anything! A Prime of the past might have struck Bumblebee across the mouth for his insolence, never mind the subordination of his military position!
Optimus could only cringe from the reproach.
He'd heard these words before, once, from another beloved friend.
The past and the present swam before Optimus' mind, swirling up memories and emotions he'd long thought put to rest. His mouth parted, but no reply came forth. It was true maybe. Maybe this was his fault. Maybe he could have, should have stopped all this long ago. A bullet, a word, a touch, all things he should have employed vorns upon vorns ago.
"I did not let him go," the words seemed flat even as they slipped from his lips, an excuse, a denial of who he was and what he should have been able to do.
The memory of the matrix staying of his hand seemed to leave him as shame filled him.
The base halls quivered with a resounding anger and rage. The electrified tension in the air blasted to Arcee to her pedes, triggering her own battle instinct to find the source, fleeing her quarters. The unbalance EMF wave was so overpowering, she wasn’t able discern the individual it belonged to. The only time the femme recalled encountering such hate and fury was in the heat of battle against the worst of Decepticon warriors.
Arcee froze mid-step at the scene before her in the back hallways of the base. Bumblebee’s smaller form rigid with barely contained animosity, as though waiting to blow. His sudden outburst to Optimus shocked her to her core. Not at all like their easy-going and cheerful, ‘bee. However, the femme was disturbed even more by the despondent posture of the usually stoic Prime.
She half-suspected the true nature of Prime’s errand out of the base with Barricade in cuffs, but something apparently prevented said errand (Barricade happened obviously) considering the subject of Bumblebee’s verbal attack. The femme watched her Prime intently, a mere unwilling spectator to an unprecedented event, stand silently through the onslaught. Arcee wasn’t fooled. She knew him too well and too long to still believe that all Primes were in completely control of their emotions. The slight slouch of the shoulder guards, the dim, and distance gaze of his optics, all were telling signs that Prime was warring within himself and losing.
When ‘Bee’s accusation transmitted to her comlink, reality restored Arcee to her senses and hurriedly intervened. Stepping between the two towering mechs, she grappled a yellow forearm tightly and demanded urgently, “Bumblebee, ENOUGH!”
Wide opticed and mouth components agape with full attention on the scout, Arcee failed to notice Optimus’s quiet reply.
Last Edit: Dec 14, 2011 18:37:51 GMT -5 by Deleted
‘Not nearly,’ chirped Bumblebee viciously. He could barely see through the rage clustered around his spark, fogging his head with heat and frustration. His EMF spiked with the underpinnings of what could have been hatred and that terrified him... but he couldn’t seem to shut himself up, the words like a tank purge forcing themselves out and out of him. He shouted at Optimus over the stop of Arcee, grabbing her shoulder as if to shove her out of the way but only standing there, EMF spiking hostile at their leader.
‘You should have killed/slagged/fragged him when you had the chance! You saw/heard what he did to Bluestreak/so many others! I don’t believe he just ‘got away’ and if he did it was because you were to slow/soft/weak to do what you should have done the moment Barricade refused to cooperate!’ Bee shook his head furiously, doorwings rattling. ‘You can always be relied on to listen to reason but never relied on to do what’s necessary!’
Bulkhead had felt Arcee's lightning-crack field clear through the base walls when they both received the comm. feed, following the femme towards the central command area by default as much as curiosity. The sight that met him at the doorway put a fist around his spark, and his storming across the floor area would have been unmissable were it not for Bumblebee's devestating tirade.
As it was, he'd caught the usually-alert scout by the scruff in one hand as abruptly as he had in the hallway only days ago, lifting him before finally backhanding him solidly across the cheek. Arcee and Optimus were far away in this insane moment, and Bulkhead's optics were narrow and bright with anger, bewilderment and shock on the much younger mech.
"You've gone way over the line, Bee, and what's more, you're acting just like Megatron. First you're hitting Dipper for just being there, and now shouting at the Prime for not killing a mech in cold blood?" Bulkhead shook his head a little, mouth open and briefly speechless as he saw the big optics widen. "This has gotta stop, Bee. You're not having the fluxes, but you're still channeling him. Letting him change you. Keep going like this, and we're gonna have to brig you like a Con."
The sudden commotion helped snap Prime back to reality.
"Arcee," he began, reaching for the femme who stood between him and Bumblebee, tense and bristling. Like a guard dog. The thought stuck him as rather humorous, in a strangely distant and not-actually-funny way-- a femme half his size trying to bodily protect him, the Prime, from a small yellow mechling scout. Ridiculous really.
It might have been amusing had the situation not been real. Or spiraling down hill as fast as it was. The hallway already reeked of frustration and anger, a chaotic miasma of flaring EMF and emotion. "Stop," He tried again, pulling Arcee back just as Bulkhead arrived to snatch and shake the yellow mech, both growling, fuming, ready to physically tear into one another. The breath caught in Prime's vents as Bulkhead struck Bumblebee. Surreal. Like watching a car crash happen in front of him, like the first time he'd ever stood in the middle of a war zone, gun fire, pavement exploding around him and scoring his frame, yelling, screaming, far away, muted, ringing in his ears next to him...his men dieing around him....
It was heading before his eyes, the tension. He could see the barely constrained volatility that had been boiling inside his mech's for days and days finally begin to rupture, his team actually about to turn on one another and rip each other apart from fear and confusion. He remembered the gun fire....
And he shook himself. For his men.
"ENOUGH," The voice was power, one fit to command legions, the subharmonics enough to shake mountains. His own field flared sharply easily overpowering the wild confusion of the others'. He rumbled deeply, pushing Arcee aside and striding forward to break Bulkhead's grasp on Bee's neck. "Enough of this!" He glared at them all. "Yes, horrible things have happened, and could possibly happen still. Yes, we are all uneasy with what the future may bring, we may all very well be extinguished TOMORROW, but we CANNOT allow this to break us apart! The moment we turn on one another is the moment Megatron wins. All we have fought for will have been for naught!"
He didn't know from where he pulled the strength as he turned to Bumblebee. " My intentions were never to let Barricade go. He escaped," He hesitated slightly before adding, "Due to the Matrix's intervention. I do not have an answer to "why", nor is such a question yours to ask."
It was only as he paused to collect himself that he realized his battle mask had raised at some point. Briefly shuttering his optics in what outwardly appeared to be a slow blink, he drew a focusing breath.
"Bumblebee, return to your quarters and wait there. I will request that Ratchet run several more scans on you. You DO appear to still be under Megatron's influences, regardless of the blocks in place."
To Bulkhead, "You struck an ally, one of your own rank whom you had no authority over. Even had you been his superior, you very well know I do not condone such behavior. You will apologize to your teammate then immediately relieve whoever is on monitory duty. I will send someone for you when I deem it appropriate."
Bulkhead's field had flattened to a tone of utter submission as soon as the Prime had spoken, and now it prickled with a toxic guilt at how much he had just disappointed his superior and shamed himself before a mech he regarded so highly. He was not sorry for striking Bumblebee, and he was distantly irked that the yellow mech wasn't receiving any reprimand for hitting Dipper - a mech who was as far from a sturdy warrior who could take a punch as you could get.
The pitch and volume of his vocaliser now firmly back in control, Bulkhead lifted his chin like a soldier - not defiant, but fully accepting of his orders. "Yes Prime. I'm sorry for lashing out on a fellow Autobot and going against the standards you've laid down to us."
More quietly to Bumbleebee: "I'm sorry it came to that 'Bee." Then, with a snapped salute to Optimus, Bulkhead turned heel and headed straight for the monitor station.
Bee didn’t move or say anything. The impact of the Bulkhead’s strike, like a note off a tuning fork, had terminated through his whole frame making him unbearably aware of his armor plating anchored into the endo-structures of his frame-type, hydraulic and neural lines linked up inside him – he woke up a stranger in his own frame and for a moment felt he could not navigate the strange design of his own body. This moment passed in less than a tenth of a second but the scout shook himself and whirred, shaken, optics flaring bright, EMF spiking with a raw horror.
‘Yes, Optimus.’ Bee’s Basic didn’t rise above barely audible levels. There was a shaky sub-sonic in the broken tones of his voice. He did not particularly register that Bulkhead had struck him and certainly not that the ex-Wrecker had done him any wrong. He was reviewing everything he’d just said that the fact his own words kinds of horrified him was reason enough to just shut up and do as told. ‘I’ll wait for Ratchet.’
Optics hazed, but stance and EMF hard, Optimus watched the two mechs leave. It was only once he was certain that both mechs had left the area that he allowed his facade of authority collapse, his frame physically wilting. He stumbled, one hand just catching himself against the wall next to him, leaning heavily as a dizzying wave of fear and relief passed over him
'Keep it together, Prime,' he told himself pitiless, 'Fall and so does everyone else.'
He vented heavily, blinking his optic to clear the haze when something dark blue caught his eye.
He froze, uncertain and ashamed.
He'd forgotten Arcee was still there. And she'd seen his moment of weakness.
Arcee knew the lore surrounding a Prime Command. Few bots could withstand, dismiss, or ignore the Command of a true Prime. A frightening thought it would be to some. Arcee was silently grateful to only experiencing the fullness of her Prime's Command Authority sporadically as she was currently flatten and subdued by Prime's EMF flare out, over washing the jumbled fields concentrated in the room.
Full attention to the words being spoken, hindered, the reprimanded Autobots departed to their own spaces. She remained rooted to her spot, unable to move, as she was temporarily forgotten. All threats daring to tear apart the team were addressed for the time being, except the one concern troubling Arcee the greatest.
Prime's sudden faltering and sagging frame brought Arcee to the present reality and rushed toward his side without delay, paying no heed to Prime's reluctant glances to her direction. Too late, Arcee wasn't going to let her Prime divert her from seeing to his well being.
"Pri-I mean, Optimus," she corrected herself, sighing an internal vent, gently placed her own servo on his forearm.
"When did you last refuel sufficiently," Arcee asked firmly, hoping to drag Prime someplace more private than the base hallways.
“I am fine, Arcee.” Optimus shook his head. “I will check in with Ratchet before I send him to look at Bumblebee. Our scout’s words, while… merited concern me. Those were not his words I heard just now.”
The syllables came low, underscored with glyphs for general dismissal, some for apology. Through sheer force of will, he schooled his tone back to a simulacrum of his usual calm, as though to simply move past what had been an obvious fracture in the monolith of his composure. All calm now was illusionary in the wake of what had happened – something without precedent for the Prime and something that had, against his better judgments, shaken him. It was a conscious effort, as he straightened his posture, not to reach up and touch the plating at his chest, over his own spark and the low, forever-hum of the Matrix inside his framework.
“You should go see to the others.” Give me a moment to gather this… to salvage this. More than anything, he wanted Arcee gone long enough for him to recover from the clutch of dread that had inhabited him suddenly – that he’d made a colossal mistake and worse… he was not certain it was his to have made… or if it had been his decision then what dark corner had he nearly turned? Arcee’s hand was on his arm still, her EMF steady and concerned. “Mmm, Arcee. I am fine.” But he did not directly meet her gaze as he said this. “I merely need a moment.”
"I don't think so, Optimus," Arcee said resolutely. "I'm not turning a blind eye, not this time."
Too much was hitting home for all of them. Arcee knew she and the rest of the team had they own ways of venting, but for Optimus it was a different matter. He was the embodiment of all that made a Prime. Others leaned on that assurance that all would be alright and well and continue to endure through this endless war, herself included. He could not bend under the pressure. He was not allowed, for they would all fall with him.
Arcee had also come to see the mech behind the title. Simply, Optimus. It was the mech behind the title that won her over to the Autobots whole-sparkingly and respect the being that was the Prime.
She wanted him to understand...he didn't have to be the Prime between the two of them. Just Optimus.
Tightening her grip on his forearm, unrelenting support/concern/friendship poured from her field daring to wrap it around the edges of his.
"If you need a pillar to lean on..." she said softly, "I'm your gal."