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.
Roulette believed herself to be a damn good shot. But she was also not acclimated enough to be of any damned use while taking cover inside a useless wreck on a planet she’d just stepped on. Firstly, the mech was diving out of the sun. It was an age old tactic (providing the planet you were on had a sun nearby) and given enough time, a good sharp shooter could eventually hit the target just by guessing a flight path.
The rest of the reasons she mentally tallied all added up to not wanting to waste her energy. Not yet. So she watched the drones flit about their business and even showed some marginal interest when they pried the pilot out. So the old cuss had survived after all. Fancy that. It was then she shifted her priorities.
Alive pilot meant a living hostage. She doubted the vengeful hero currently shredding the ship apart would fire on his own team. So as the drones moved him, she followed behind and stuck close, though it did surprise her some that the leader of the drones was willing to perform triage on the pilot. Talk about job dedication.
The first of the fire reached Air Raid just as he was climbing through twelve thousand feet. He swore and broke off his climb, snap-rolling to keep the laser fire from tearing through his nose and intakes.
Crap!
He switched to air-to-air and fanned his radar back, straining to turn the beam behind him. No good. He banked hard, and as he did the targets fell into the azimuth of his radar. It was the airborne Vehicons, furiously in pursuit. Well, that was no surprise. Given the drubbing that he and the NEST pilots had given their decoy forces over the past month or so it stood to reason that they would leap at any opportunity to vindictively put a hole in his tail.
But with an Autobot hostage on the ground, this was the worst possible time!
Air Raid swapped to boresight and kept up his steep turn, swinging his nose back towards the Vehicon jets. He knew that his F-35 was better suited for aerial combat on this planet, having been designed from the ground up to efficiently operate within Earth's atmosphere - but there were four of them, and only one of him. And he was not foolish enough to call those even odds.
His gatling cannon spun up and chattered, spitting a barrage of laser fire at the lead Vehicon. The jets neatly broke apart, splitting into two formations of two jets each. Air Raid pointed his nose upwards and blasted his afterburner in a vain attempt to grab more altitude as they circled back to intercept him.
He swore in frustration for a second time as he broke off his climb and turned to meet them. The Vehicons had him on the defensive, diverted. No way could he make it back to the crash site now.
'Damn! Sorry, pal, but you're on your own for a bit! I'll come back for you when I hose these guys down, I swear!'
Less than four hundred feet from the shuttle wreckage, another ground bridge spiralled into existence.
This time, what emerged from the vortex of green light was not a unit of Vehicon reinforcements, but a scuffed blue and grey tank. It barrelled from the ground bridge within a cloud of dust, its treads spinning and its big engine roaring. Without pause it accelerated towards the crash site, smashing rock and scrub brush alike beneath it as its main turret rotated towards the shuttle.
The Vehicons standing guard over Atracchus and Roulette froze. The tank was not familiar, but the blue and grey urban camouflage paint scheme was.
Alarm rippled through their battle net. A handful of Vehicons broke from cover to intercept the tank, already firing. Their shots hit its sloping armour and deflected without harm. Undeterred, the tank sped up, streaming dust in its wake, its aerials flagging backwards. They could see straight down its giant smoothbore gun, but the weapon remained silent. The tank did not return their fire.
Wrapped in armour plating, his mind enveloped within the cool and detached internal display of his inner HUD, Fortress Maximus silently raged at all of the Decepticon targets on his radar that he was not allowed to kill.
No, he told himself sharply. That wasn't true. They were at war, and he would kill without hesitation if the situation called for it. But this was not a sortie for revenge. This was not about leaving a string of corpses behind him. There was an Autobot in need of aid, and he was there to provide it. This objective was more important than his grief.
After the disastrous encounter with Megatron, Maximus knew that he needed to work hard to prove he had learned this lesson. To Arcee and to Optimus, and to himself.
He was honest enough to admit to himself that he mostly wished to prove it to Optimus.
Realising that their blaster fire was not scratching the bastard's armour, several Vehicons lunged forward to close in with the tank at close range. It could not be allowed to reach Atracchus while he was distracted by their prisoner. Nor Roulette, the Decepticon they had been scrambled to retrieve.
At close range, the tank transformed.
Surrounded by dust, Maximus roared out of his vehicle mode, using all of his momentum to lunge through an uppercut that caught the nearest Vehicon in the jaw and hammered it into the sky. As it smashed into the ground by the shuttle the massive Autobot spun and curtly backhanded the next Vehicon out of his way. The Vehicon staggered back, only to be grabbed around the throat by one arm and hoisted into the air.
His prisoner secured in a headlock, Maximus turned towards the shuttle and raised his voice.
"All right," he said. "Let's talk hostage exchange."
Atracchus rummaged through his medkit for more clamps, and his hand brushed by only a few odd sizes that remained. That this many clamps were needed was a clear indication of his appalling condition, but the main leaks had been attended to, which would hopefully give the patient’s energon-depraved systems a chance to begin to stabilise on whatever liquid was still retained within.
Hands slicked with energon and internal fluids, the Vehicon now reached for the thick mesh bandages and dressed one stump tightly. Lacking the proper suite of medical sensors or port jacks, Atracchus kept glancing at the Autobot’s faceplates every few seconds for any indication of his condition. There was nothing: aside from one or two reflexive groans, the prisoner was utterly oblivious to the world around him. As soon as these bandages were done and Ja’mie had returned from the ship, they would retreat back to the Nemesis before Air Raid returned: and, if Primus was willing, they would have the chance to save their prisoner and whatever intel they may possess. After their fliers had returned, the skies were now mercifully clear: not an enemy in sight. Hopefully they could keep it that way.
But how wrong he was.
Focused as he was on the mech’s other leg, Atracchus started at the sound of blaster fire. His gaze instinctively jerked upwards towards the sky, but was seized by the large, heavy-duty tank that barrelled towards them, completely unperturbed by the laser fire spanging off its sides.
He couldn’t move.
Those several long kliks of paralysis stretched out into a bottomless eternity – memories of another barren, dusty expanse swarming like flies to crowd out his rational mind. To transport him, in processor, back to a gore-splattered killing field. Fragments of his patrol scattered underfoot, swallowed by the cold, unfeeling night. Girt in his seams, pinned on his back: his assailant tearing him apart, one limb at a time.
Red optics glinting like coals in the dark…
He couldn’t move. But if he had been able to, he might have been able to prevent what happened next.
Fortress Maximus, alive and in the mesh, a nightmare made real upon waking.
The monster’s arm encircled like a trap around a struggling Snowy.
Atracchus’ pump plummeted and his intakes stalled. For one terrifying moment all he could see was Maverick impaled on that arm: punched straight through his chassis. His biolights still flickering, but functionally dead before he'd even hit the ground.
His spark constricted painfully in its casing. No, not Snowy. In all his long and unusual life, she had the gentlest spark of any mech he’d ever met. She’d wanted to come and investigate a fallen ship: to distract herself from her worried berthside helicoptering of Archetryx, Earhart, Von, and the other fliers still recovering from the endless dogfights. Atracchus had suggested the idea himself: an irritable Archetryx had all but thrown her after him. And the sight was made all the more painful for the fact that she would never willingly hurt anyone. For a drone moulded to the function of frontline warfare, she hated violence.
But he would hurt her.
Snowy struggled against the crushing grip, wriggling her shoulders desperately to get free, but the pin was too tight. Lifted bodily off the ground as she was, she clung to his arm in an attempt that was caught between trying to free herself and having something steady to hold on to. The choking blaze of her captor's field around her was enough to sustain a permanently frenzied feedback loop in her battle net. It was raw, hateful, wrathful: utterly ropable in its stony restraint. Hurt. Overwhelmed, her own field was drawn so close to her chassis it was like a second layer of paint – but, as close as they were, her captor couldn’t possibly miss the quickening pulse of anxiety and fear. Nor the way her plating quivered against his own.
‘Don’t do it!’ She cried out, as Atracchus approached. She strained against the impossibly large arm, sensors on her chest and back plates bleating against the crushing pressure. ‘Y…you know you can’t reason with him. He’s just – gonna take the Bot an’ kill us all.’ Her visor dilated wide in despair. ‘There’s no point –!’
<<It’s alright, Snowy.>> The Vehicon had stopped now, several body lengths from the Autobot. His hands were outstretched, and he soothed in a low, lilting whirr. <<It’s alright. Take some nice, deep, easy vents...that’s it. Everything is going to be fine.>>
At the gentle reminder, the Vehicon's vent frequency began to slow. Each inhale and exhale still caught painfully from the brute force constricting the external flaps, but the pace became more measured, made it easier for her to see through the fog of fight-or-fight subroutines that swamped her HUD. She lifted her helm to see her captor's face - and quickly diverted her gaze back to Atracchus. She clung tighter to the giant arm, tugging at it feebly.
Lowering his arms to his sides, Atracchus turned his attention to the large warrior wrapped around her comparatively tiny frame. Who could collapse Snowy’s chest with a tiny, vicious squeeze. That he was not making the first besrkered kill was different: made everything so much more unpredictable. Perhaps the situation had changed now that an Autobot lay in their own care. The exchange needed to occur quickly: Suzanne now continued to dress the prisoner’s wounds, but every second the Autobot was bleeding out was another second bought before he joined with the Allspark. And even if they did manage to successfully make an exchange, could they trust him to maintain such restraint?
There were too many variables. Far too many ways this all could go wrong. The window of favourable opportunity was slim at best, but Atracchus shoved as much of his own uncertainty and lingering terror aside to solely focus on that. He forced calm, sincerity and control into his field. He needed to be operating at his most optimal – for all their sakes.
<<Fortress Maximus.>>
The name was spoken with respectful glyphs, marking his position as both a military and individual superior to his own self. According to the Autobot’s file (which, while brief, Atracchus had studied at length after the events of that patrol) he once held rank – whether or not this still remained after Garrus 9 he was not sure, but did not dare risk the possibility of offense.
<<We will release the Autobot pilot into your care and permit him, yourself and the Aerialbot to leave without interference. The pilot requires urgent medical attention that we have not been able to provide here.>> He sidestepped – away from the shuttle – to ensure Fortress Maximus had a full view of the Autobot. His hands were still slick with the mechaniod’s energon, feeling it cool against his sensors.
Whatever his internal state may have been, Atracchus’ gaze was even and steady. His red visor craned upwards to hold red optics that blazed with a battle lust that was barely restrained. His next words were infused with lower, calmer notes.
<<In return, I ask that you release the Vehicon unharmed, and swear that you will not retaliate against her or my team. We will leave the site peacefully, and immediately. You have my word.>>
In gambling, there were certain stakes to be made or to forfeit. Roulette had operated one of the larger tables of the betting house and learned a whole new set of talents. At no point did she grow better at the game. She learned how to read a mech or femme, even how to read the whole room. Group dynamics were important in a casino. A festive group meant a sloppy, but good natured crowd willing to lose their credits. But a somber room meant trouble. The canyon they were situated in had grown somber to the point of excruciating.
Roulette didn’t know who the heavy hitter was, but the moment the mech rolled up and casually shook off attempts at attack, she knew she didn’t want to get anywhere near that fragger. She was already retreating when Atracchus grew as rigid as a board. She’d heard of mechs freezing up in battle but she’d never actually seen that happening. There is a past history there. No two ways about it. Whatever their little reunion is, I don’t want any part of it.
Unfortunately the drones were too loyal to one another and that loyalty was going to get someone killed. Roulette was going to make damn sure it wasn’t going to be her. She didn’t owe them anything. She didn’t owe anyone anything and wasn’t about to watch things go sour over a hostage negotiation. That pilot was as good as dead anyway. The minute he folded, that tank was going to start blasting their afts into pieces and they’d gleefully line up for their comrade.
Casually (one could even say nervously) she turned her wary gaze away from the stand off and looked to the ship. There wasn’t much help coming from that abandoned hulk and for one moment she allowed herself to glare at busted metal. Somehow this was all the damned ship’s fault. And the pilots, but he was too busy dying to be blamed. She could allow herself this mental-tantrum at the ship and how it had made something so simple into a long, drawn out process. If she didn’t have control over herself she’d just shoot the damned thing.
Her optics widened just the slightest as she saw at the gleaming drip of fuel sluggishly spilling from the ship’s underside… She turned back to watch the hostage negotiation with the hint of a grin.
The Vehicon sounded composed and calm. What he looked was familiar.
Maximus did not reply. He stood in flinty silence and narrowed his optics at Atracchus in suspicion. It was difficult to say for certain - the Vehicon troops all looked the same to him - but the feeling that he had met this one before nagged at him. It was his bearing. It was different. Amidst an army of drones, this Vehicon carried about him an air of quiet authority.
He had encountered it once before.
An ugly memory stirred. Fighting in the desert darkness, bright flashes from the muzzle of an arm cannon blazing in the night as a Vehicon fought to defend his comrades. Leaning over that wounded mech, a ferocious exhilaration roaring over him as his victim's arm tore from its shoulder mount with a grisly pop and a spatter of fluid-
Snowy's fear radiated into him like heat. Maximus could feel it through her plating and his own. He was acutely conscious of the pressure of his arm around her throat. It would take no effort to crush it. No effort at all. All he had to do was squeeze and another Vehicon life would be spilt out over his plating. Another crumpled husk to pave that long, dark road to vengeance.
No!
No. Maximus inhaled sharply. He struggled to cool his rising ire. This was not something he could afford to dwell on now. No more loss of control. No more mistakes. Not when an Autobot life was at stake.
He fixed Atracchus with a livid glare.
"Bring our pilot forward," he grated. He jerked his head. "Over here. Just one of you. No weapons. If you’re going to take a shot at me you'd better make it count. You'll only get one."
He tightened his grip on Snowy. "You bring our Autobot here, and I release this Decepticon. Alive. You have my word."
The abrupt comm. came from a Vehicon who stood not too far from the similarly liveried femme. In a crowd of identical faces and tense, discordant frequencies, one helm shifted slightly from the source of abject horror to look evenly at her.
::Bastard’s one‘a those ‘lucky’ ones.:: Logan continued. ::He just don’ die, not even when fraggin’ Megatron hisself went t’ shut ‘im down all proper-like. Even took a shot straight t’ th’ processor an’ didn’ so much as blink.::
::Tore through patrols like a sparkeater in a bitlet crèche. Tore th’ arm offa that one there, too..:: Hir’s helm tilted slightly, indicating Atracchus at the head of the team. :: ‘S why everyone’s standing ‘round lookin’ like Unicron hirself popped in ter drink th’ ‘gon straight from our tanks. He’d do it.::
It was a finer point of Logan’s nature that in spite of his gruff and, at times brutally blunt, demeanour, he kept a visor’s edge open to the ‘bots around him. Here was a femme who’d just broken atmo on her helm, gotten shot at by an Aerialbot and was now facing down the scariest motherboard-fragging mech the Pits had ever seen fit to spit out. ‘Woke up on the wrong side of the berth’ didn’t quite begin to cover that one.
Sympathetic glyphs wove into his rough wording. ::Point is, sir, ‘m sorry this has t’ go an’ be yer first day on Earth. ‘Magine gettin’ sat on by a cityformer’d be lookin’ like a step up on th’ shitstick righ’ abou’ now. But we let ‘Tracs try an’ appeal t’ his better Autobotty nature – an’ I reckon he’s got a fair chance – an’ we gets out with all our pieces still attached t’ the right areas, there’s a lot nicer things t’ see an’ do here th’n play chicken in th’ dirt.::
A short glyph-burst of compliance was the reply, and Atracchus walked back through the throng of anxious, outraged and quivering fields. He gave no indication, however, in step or in field, that he was not in control of the situation. That there couldn’t be anything other than a peaceful, rational solution to the issue of Snowy’s and all of their lives. Whatever Atracchus thought of their chances, he did not allow himself to dwell on that dark valley of possibility that lay between success and failed contingency protocols.
The outcome of that dark night, in another place that was very much like this.
He knelt down beside the broken figure and lifted him to rest on his shoulder, as carefully as he could. But the pilot’s frame mass was considerable for his frame size, and an attempt to move was met with a lurch that almost unbalanced them both.
That was when Suzanne ducked under the Autobot’s other shoulder, evenly balancing the weight between them. There were no words between the two Vehicons: the reflexive jolt of Atracchus’ field was smoothed by Suzanne’s own frequencies before they interlocked together, strength and kin as one.
‘Unless y’ want us t’ drag him over,’ Suzanne retorted loudly, before the Autobot could object. Her visor lifted to blaze into those hateful, Pit-red optics.
Together they carried him from under the broken fuselage of the ship. Fifteen steps from the edge of their kin they stopped, Atracchus gently extricating himself from under the Autobot’s arm. As the weight was shifted to Suzanne’s shoulder, the pilot moaned, but remained senseless to the precarious world that had suddenly evolved around him.
Atracchus took one step forward. Then another.
<<The pilot.>> came the flat whistle-whirr of his shattered voicebox. Suzanne slowly lowered him to the ground, then, walked backwards towards the other Decepticons, not once taking her visor off Fortress Maximus.
Atracchus, however, did not move from between them. Why would he? If Fortress Maximus wished, so he could eviscerate him with a single pointed jab to the chassis. He posed no risk to the terrifying, animalistic might of the ex-warden, and his steadfastness owed more to a need to ease Snowy and to develop work-arounds for stunted fight-or-flight protocols that seized his limbs. But his field, at least, remained measured, even calm. Lives depended on that fact.
<<Now,>> he said. <<Release the Vehicon.>>
::NOBODY shoot.:: The order was underlain with stone. ::Unless I give the command.::
This is so excruciatingly....BORING. Roulette fought the urge to shift from one foot to the other, her field curiously flat and slightly prickling with irritation. She wanted to shoot the pilot in the head just to make something happen instead of this stand off. I guess I owe the drones a modicum of control for their services. They just need to get on with it.
To say she wasn't scared wouldn't be true. She was vaguely worried about her health in a way an intelligent creature would be on a battlefield. Could she die? Of course. But the odds of the heavy hitter targeting her was extremely low to the point of laughable. Whatever was going on between the group here and the biggun was personal. She was an after thought. And that afforded her all the security she needed. If things went south, she could very well flee before he was done slaughtering all of the drones.
She had no personal stake with this group whatsoever. If they died, that would be unfortunate (especially if she wanted to contact the Nemesis and get out of enemy hands) but she wouldn't feel so much grief. Perhaps she was just jaded at this point. Perhaps she was just uncaring and selfish. Perhaps many things. But that didn't change Roulette's feelings about herself or others. This was war and she was going to survive.