"Primus-fragging-half-glitched-son-of-a-smelting-slag-head!" Sideswipe tossed the remote down as the screen faded to black, again. Blaster threw himself back on the couch with a high whine and kicked his feet like a sparkling.
"This is so stupid, it shouldn't be this hard," he yelled.
"Mute it, Blaster," Sunstreaker said sullenly. He looked at Jazz while Blaster continued to pout. "You wanna try again? You got the closest." After two joors of trying to eliminate the final boss of level ten Jazz was ready to shut the game off and find a good movie to laugh at.
"It's that stupid AI," Blaster sulked. "It always gets in the way when you're tryin' to do something." Sideswipe nodded, an angry scowl still on his face. The screen came back up to their last save, their avatar crouched and ready to move. Running into the wall behind it was the game's character. "Maybe Wheeljack can do somethin' to it, make it go away or disappear when we're fighting."
Jazz looked at the clock again. Two. Joors. Each one of them had tried more than three times now to take the ridiculously overpowered villain out. "My mechs, I do believe, we have a crisis," he declared. "And a crisis calls for reinforcements." Jumping up from his place on the floor he ran for the door double checking the date.
"Who're you getting?" Sideswipe yelled, but Jazz was out the door and sprinting down the hall.
Jazz knocked twice and hoped one of the mechs would answer. Sometimes they pretended they weren't in so they wouldn't be bothered by petty problems, but this was an emergency. The lock clicked and Jazz whooped. "Ah'm so glad you're here! I need your help."
The mech tilted his head, "Tonight is your night off, isn't it?"
"Yeah, see, we're playin' this game and we're at the final boss of this level but the fragger won't die. We can't even get close. So I was wonderin' if you could try?" He turned on all the charm he had hoping he didn't look as desperate as he felt. The mech was quiet for a moment, fingers absently tapping on the doorframe.
"All right, I'll be down there in a breem."
Jazz ran back to the room absolutely giddy. "He'll be here in a breem." Sunstreaker dropped the controller on the table and sat back with a scowl matching his brother's. The screen faded to black as the boss finished tearing the avatar apart.
"Who did you get?" Blaster asked.
"You'll never guess," Jazz told them smugly. The twins and Blaster looked from the controller to the screen where their avatar reappeared with the game's stupid AI still running into the wall.
"Wheeljack?"
"Hoist?"
"Bluestreak?"
"No, nope, and nu-uh," Jazz said, still grinning. There was a soft knock on the door and Jazz opened it.
"Are you glitchin' me?"
"You're jokin'."
"What?"
"See," Jazz said. "Told you you'd never guess." He laughed as the other three continued to stare.
Prowl picked up the controller and played with the controls for a second until he could move and attack easily and then started down the hall the rest of them had traipsed several dozen times. "This is a very poorly constructed AI," he said. The AI bumped into the avatar while he was trying to jump across a gap in the floor. The rest of the mechs groaned and hissed in agreement.
They quieted when Prowl entered the room with the boss. While they had gotten to the point of skipping the cut scene, Prowl watched it all the way through with the same analytical look he had when he was going over troop movement.
Instead of rushing the boss he ran around the edge of the room until he found the hole in the floor Jazz had accidentally fallen in on his second or third attempt. "Aha, got you," Prowl murmured. He circled around the boss and attacked, enraging the monster until it balled up and rolled around the room crushing everything in its path trying to run down the avatar. Prowl ran straight at the hole in the floor and jumped across. The boss rolled in and its life bar drained.
The four mechs sat silent as another cut screen gave them their next mission. "Are you fragging glitching me?" Sunstreaker choked out. "Two fragging joors we been trying to kill that stupid thing."
Prowl handed the controller to Blaster. "Usually if the character's weapons are ineffective there is something in the environment you have to use."
"I can't believe we didn't even think about that," Sideswipe said still staring at the screen. "Two joors. We went back a level to pick up explosives!"
"And he just rolls it into a hole," Blaster giggled. "Primus frag me, that is so stupid."
Jazz scratched between his horns. "Uh, thanks, Prowl. Thought this was going to take longer." Prowl fluffed his wings and a smile lifted the corner of his mouth and he left without another word.
After the door shut Blaster asked, "How'd you find out Prowl likes video games?"
Jazz sat down to watch Blaster annihilate some henchmen in the new level. "We were on shore leave a couple vorns ago and I saw him lookin' at them. I thought it was pretty funny and I gave him some slag for it, but he likes the puzzles. He plays the really hard ones where you gotta remember what you did in level one if you wanna beat the boss in level twelve kinda things." He shrugged. "So when I get stuck, I ask him to help."
"Rolled the damn thing into a hole, I swear to Primus," Sunstreaker muttered, optics on the screen but probably not watching what was happening.
"And he usually gets it done in one try and makes me feel like a glitch," Jazz laughed.
"Wonder what the Prime would do if he knew his SIC liked these games?" Sideswipe laughed. "Can you imagine the look on his face, he goes to see Prowl and he's trying to take on some swamp monster or a dragon or something?" The four of them snorted and laughed.
oOo
Prowl sat down and picked up his controller. "Did you get them unstuck?" Red Alert asked sipping his energon.
"A simple fix," he said with a smile. "Ready?"
Red Alert picked up his controller. "When you are." They unpaused the game and jumped back into their melee attack on the besieged castle.
"You miss all the good power ups when you do that," Optimus said as Red Alert efficiently cut through his enemies instead of using the fanciful sword work that amassed power coins.
"Too many combatants," Ratchet said. "Power ups aren't worth anything if you lose a life trying to get them."
"What if you need to upgrade your weapon before you can take on this final boss?" Wheeljack asked.
"Our last save is at the outpost, if that's the case we'll restart from there and get the power ups we need," Prowl said deflecting two strikes and taking out five enemies.
oOo
A/N: So yesterday I played a game for the first time in…years. And while I was stuck on a puzzle I had this funny idea of Prowl and Jazz playing a game together; Jazz running around collecting things and Prowl doing all the puzzles. So here are the Autobots on their down time with video games. Thank you for R&R