Autobots vs Monacus
Author's Foreword:
Upon reviewing some of C.M.D.'s new works before she posted them I had a strong craving to watch the episode when Smokescreen and Devcon first met so I did. The idea for this one came from the ending - they transformed and drove to a casino - it made me think, how would the Autobots spend their time there? Considering the comedy gold mine it presented I found it very hard not to write about Inferno, Bumblebee, Smokescreen, Optimus Prime and Perceptor gambling along with a number of other things happening!
Hope you guys enjoy!
"So, this is the most prestigious casino on Monacus, huh?"
And indeed it was, as far as the eye could see. The underground facility was filled with servants handling numerous customers dressed in whatever their culture thought of as "elegant" and "high class". Crude, yet none the less beautiful, stonework encompassed the vast space, thousands of bright lamps emanating light, driving the darkness away from even the farthest corners; white marble floors stretched under the fluffiest rugs, supporting all sorts of expensive furniture and gambling apparatus.
"Yes!" Smokescreen rubbed his hands as a malevolent smirk came onto his faceplates, making Perceptor lean away in fright, "Let's do this!"
"We gonna smoke 'em good! So how yer people do this whole gamblin' thing? Oh, look!" The fire truck came up to a unmanned device with one hand and gently patted it on the side. "N'other bot without a hand!"
"Inferno, that's a slot machine."
"Then I'll be here!"
"All right, so Inferno is off, now, Bumblebee …"
"I think I will go play Bingo. They have Bingo here, right?"
"Right over there, lil' fella."
"All right!"
"All right now it is just the three of us."
"Smokescreen," Optimus turned to the Datsun after taking a minute to examine some of the games once they made it to the bottom of the stairs, "What would you recommend for me and Perceptor?"
"Hm, well," the psychologist carefully looked at the two, grabbed each by the hand, dragged them over to one of the tables and pushed them into the seats, "Why don't you guys try this one?"
"Welcome! Welcome, new comers!" The robotic employee immediately turned to them, "Would you like something to drink before your game?"
"Thank you; that is very nice of you. What do you have?" Optimus answered.
"We have, literally, everything! Be it high-grade energon from Cybertron or the dirtiest spittle of a dying Ick-Yak, we have it all!"
"What do you think, Perceptor?"
"Some oil would be nice if it is not too much trouble."
"A cube of energon for me," Prime turned to the Datsun, "Smokescreen, what do you want? Smokescreen?"
The gambler was nowhere to be seen.
"Where did he …" The truck wanted to get up but was stopped by one of the people sitting at the table.
"Oi! Don't you be leaving the table! The game is about to start!"
"Oh, my friend …"
"You leave now or yer gonna hafta find a new table, buddy. Plus, you'll need to pay a fee for quitting!"
"Oh, hrm," Optimus took a quick look around the casino, with the hope of finding his soldier, "Well, Smokescreen wouldn't leave without a good reason. We are all here to have fun anyway so …"
"So yer stayin' or quittin'?"
"Sir, perhaps it would be best if one of us stayed …"
"The fee yer dolt!"
"Perceptor, I am sure that everything is fine. Now, let's try to have some fun."
"As you say, sir."
"I'll be takin' yer energon chips!"
"… it's just you 'n' me now, babe …"
"Sir, would you please stop talking to the slot machine …"
"O' righ', o' righ' …"
"… twenty seven, twenty seven, twenty seven. Next is Ick-Yak …"
"Bingo!"
"Congratulations, sir, here are your winnings! 100 energon chips!"
"Yes!"
"… first let's have some fun and then get down to business …" Smokescreen thought to himself once he had snuck away from Perceptor and Optimus Prime, "… let's see, I am feeling lazy, so let's go with Blackjack. Oh! Strippers!"
"… so the point of this game is to acquire all the energon chips that your opponents have, is that correct?"
"Yer fellers ain't much o' gamblers, are ya?"
"No, this is our first time. Perceptor, are you ready?"
"Yes, sir."
"Why yer callin' 'im sir all the time?"
"Optimus Prime is the supreme commander of Autobot forces in the galaxy."
"Well, shave mah back and call me a slanted, hilly-jolly Ick-Yak. I'll be damned!"
"Forgive me but that is not something I have a desire to do. Why would want yourself to be damned anyway?"
"Ergh," the alien turned to Optimus, "He ain't much of a social 'bot, is he?"
"This is a new environment for him, if you would be kind enough to go easy on him, I would be much obliged, friend."
"Er, no need fer yer manners! Name's Bango, imma gonna teach yer fellers how tah play this game!"
"Thank you, Bango."
"Indeed!"
"Ter be honest with yer, imma a lil' scared ter be playin' 'gainst yer two."
"Why is that? We barely have any knowledge of this game, the chances of us winning are astronomical if none …"
"He ain't one of them scientist peoples, is he?"
"Yes, he is."
"Well, I be damned! Listen 'ere boy, I may not know any of that science stuff you do but lemme tell ya, when it comes down to gamblin' I know what I'm playin' out."
"So what it is about us that makes you so afraid of playing against us?"
"Beginner's Luck, kid."
"Is that an observable phenomenon?"
"Yer tell me after we play this game."
"Ladies and gentlemen, the time has come. If you would please lay down your energon chips, we shall begin!"
"Perceptor, how many energon chips do you have?"
"I have six, sir."
"Hm, I have thirteen."
"I'm puttin' down 50 000 energon chips."
"Pardon me?"
"What?"
"Sirs, who put down six and thirteen energon chips, this is a high-bid table."
"Hey, feller, it's their first time."
"Oh, forgive my rudeness. We have 50 000 from Bango, 6 from ..."
"Could you give us a minute?"
"Sure, sirs."
"Perceptor," Optimus whispered to the microscope, "The point of this to have fun, so if we lose, don't worry about it."
"Yes, sir."
"Another thing, maybe we should come up with aliases for ourselves."
"Pardon me, sir?"
"The point of this is to have fun, how often would we get a chance like this?"
"Like what, sir?"
"Do just let ourselves loose and do whatever we want?"
"Hm, that is a very good point, sir."
"I think I know what I will go with."
"Oh! I think I know what I will name myself!"
"All right! Let's do this! We have decided on our aliases."
"Aliases are illegal, sir."
"Er, common, feller, let 'em have just this one. Dun forget! It's their first time too!"
"Hm, fine, but do mind that the next time you will be obligated to give your real names."
"Oh, we are sorry."
"No, no, sir, I keep forgetting that this is your first time. Forgive me; please, enjoy."
"Oh, thank you."
"All right, ladies and gentlemen, 50 000 from Mister Bango, 65 000 from Miss Lut, 42 000 from Castor Blakes, 82 000 from Rodriguez, 13 from, sir, what would you like to be called?"
"Peter."
"Peter, great choice! And last but not the least, with 6 energon chips, sir, what would you like to be called?"
"Perpetual Motion Specialist!"
"Great choice, sir! Oh, a simple inquiry?"
"Yes?"
"Your name is too long for the score board, would it be possible for me to abbreviate your name?"
"Yes, sure!"
"Um, Perceptor …"
"Yes?"
"Um," Optimus took a second to think about it but decided not to bring it up, "Nope, nevermind."
"All right."
"If you and the spectators wish to see the scores, you can always look at the video score board."
When the service robot said that, all looked at the monitor he was pointing at and one by one their names showed up. Bango and Lut raised their glasses to toast for the game, but once they saw the shortened version of Perceptor's alias …
"PFFFFFF!"
"AHA! HOOO!"
"Tffhehehe." Optimus and Castor Blakes were barely able to withhold themselves from laughing, even the service bot couldn't help but smirk.
"What?" Perceptor attentively looked at the board, "Why is everybody acting like this? Did I miss something?"
"Kid," Bango was the first to recover, still chocking on his drink. Taking another second to think about it, noticing an evil glint in Optimus' optics, he decided to avoid indulging the red mech. "It's a tradition of sorts. In any case, good luck."
"Ah," Lut leaned in closer to the confused mech, displaying her massive cleavage to the gathered crowd as she rested her ample breasts onto the table; lecherously running her tongue over plump lips and played with her shoulders. "Sorry boys, this one is mine."
"Oh, dear …"
"Ladies and gentlemen, let the game begin!"
"… hey, babe, wanna go s'mwhere more private?"
"… sir, step away from the machine …"
"… and the winner is Bumblebee! Congratulations, sir, on your 34th consecutive win!"
"Stop winning, you loser!"
"Hit me! Hit me! Hit me! All right, you know what, how about this, keep hitting me until I say stop …"
"… masochist …"
"Mister Peter, sir, you are up first."
"Hm, all right, so, um," Optimus looked at his and Perceptor's piles and then at the mountains of chips that their opponents had set. In the millions of years of never-ending battles, he had became immune to intimidation, he was up against the ferocious leader of the Decepticons himself! "Hah, I wonder what would Megatron do …"
"Sir?"
"Oh, sorry, hm," Prime looked at his hand, tapped his fingers on the wooden surface and threw in two chips, "2."
"Call."
"Call."
"Call."
"Hm, eh, um, eh." The microscope was very unsure of what to do. The twins tried a few times playing with him for money but seeing as Perceptor had absolutely no aptitude for this sort of stuff, they just gave up. "Hm, um …"
"Sir?"
"Eh, eh …"
"Sir?"
"Um …"
"Sir? Sir …" the service robot sighed smiling as he shook his head, "… sir P.M.S.?"
"Oh? Huh? Yes! Oh! Right! Um, 3!"
"All right, so you raise?"
"Um, what?"
"Sometin' be tellin' me this gohnna be a loooong nigh'…"
"… wasn't there a slot machine here …"
"… amazing! Ten million energon chips in just 72 games!"
"That guy has the devil's own luck!"
"No! He is the devil!"
"The legends were lying! The devil is yellow!"
"… three of Spades, King of Hearts …"
"Hey! Are you counting cards?"
"Sir, I deal the cards, I can't play …"
"You're counting cards!"
"Those are your cards!"
"Don't try to turn this around me! You are the one who is cheating!"
"… sir, how many cubes of fine grade did you have?"
"… you are counting that too now? MANAGER!"
"Hrmpf," Blakes stroked four of his chins, closely inspecting the shivering red miscroscope and then slowly stretched out his hand, "Call your 1 and raise you 21 thousand."
"Um, what do I do?"
"Go all in, kid!"
"Sir, you have to go all in."
"Um, all right …"
"Sir, this is your first time playing?"
"Um, yes."
"All right then …"
"No, no, son, let me help the youn' feller."
"As you wish."
"Yeah, kid, you gotta go all in, it's the only thin' yer can do."
"All right then," Perceptor took a deep breath and exhaling, pushed his puny pile right besides the monstrous mountain of energon chips, "Let's play."
"I am …" Lut slowly said, looking at the cards that were dealt to her, then tilted her head; giving Blakes a quick glance before smiling wickedly as she brought her gaze to rest on the scientist, "… calling your 21 thousand."
"Callin' yer 21 k."
"Hm," Optimus looked at the confused solider, "I am staying this one out."
"All right, Ladies and Gentlemen, as you see we so far have Eight of Spades, Nine of Spades Ten of Spades, Jack of Spades and Queen of Spades …"
"Oh, sweetie cakes," the only female contestant reached into her hair, raised it from behind messing it up a little, made a duck face and winked at Perceptor, "I am the Queen of Spades and your desires."
"Uh-huh," Prime leaned away from Lut, "I think I will need to take multiple showers …"
"Oi," Bango joined into the conversation, "That would be his first time …"
"Oh?" She turned to their friend with a devilish spark in her eyes. "I love first timers!"
"Ahem, ladies and gentlemen, like I was saying, please, reveal your cards."
"Hehe, yer better say goodbye to yer chips fellers."
"Two pairs, Nines and Jacks. Great, sir!"
"I am afraid I will be keeping everything," Blakes revealed his hand.
"Two pairs, Jacks and Queens! Marvelous, sir!"
"Oh, I don't know, I think I will be quitting this game, here is your fee, bye guys."
"Mister Rodriguez is out but his last bid will stay in the game. Miss Lut?"
"Sorry boys," the female cooed, "Straight flush."
"Sir …" the service bot laughingly sighed, "… sir P.M.S.?"
"Um," Perceptor nervously looked at everyone, still shivering, revealed his hand, "Here."
"WHAT THE …"
"UNHOLY RELICS OF DUCKVILLE!"
"Holy crap …"
"Didn' I tell yer fellers? Beginner's Luck's a mighty partner."
"What? What happened?"
"Royal flush! Congratulations on winning the first round."
"Wait," Optimus and Perceptor looked at each other and then at the monstrous pile of energon chips, "What? We won all that?"
"Yes, P.M.S. has won this round; everything that was put on the bid is now property of P.M.S." The service bot was having a hard time getting through the sentences without giggling.
It took Optimus and Perceptor a whole minute to process the information.
"Ho, haha," Lut covered her mouth and began laughing so hard that she nearly fell of her seat, "Oh, this shall be fun!"
"Heh, Beginner's Luck ain't over, missy, you better watch out."
"Oh, please, look at those two blokes! They just won by a fluke!"
"Hey, Blakey, jealous, 're we?"
"… hey, wasn't there a slot machine here?"
"Yes! I am not the only one!"
"Where did it go?"
"I don't know, help me look for it!"
"I will check with the floor manager and you check the washrooms."
"Why the washrooms?"
"Just do it …"
"Why the hell would it be in the washroom?"
"I don't know, just in case; I got a bad feeling about this."
"Sir, would you like to take a break?"
"MORE! MORE! MORE!"
"… but we are all out of prizes! You won everything we had for Bingo!"
"THAN. GET. MORE!"
"Grrr! I can't see anything!"
"… sir, if you didn't fart …"
"I WASN'T FARTING!"
"… this is ridiculous!"
Lut, Blakes and Bango were all in shock, seeing that most of their money was lost to the scientist in just four turns, unable to understand how it happened.
"Um, yer fellers sure you never played before?"
"Yes, we are sure, most of our time we were fighting Decepticons."
"And conducting crucial research."
"Can't exactly call is research if you and Wheeljack keep blowing up the lab."
"Sir, I assure you I do everything in my power to conduct my research!"
"Yeah, tell that to Red Alert. The twins locked him up with Wheeljack in the lab -he is still seeing a psychologist!"
"Sirs, congratulations on yet another astonishing win!"
"Oh, thank you so much! I honestly did not expect any of this to happen at all!"
"Hey, Lut," Bango turned to the female with a sad smile on his face, "Still want a piece of that?"
"Oooooh," she trembled, crooning in a slightly erotic fashion which made everybody, even the service bot, lean away from the sheer disturbing sight. Then, she stretched out her hand on the wooden surface and slid it onto Perceptor's, "I must have you!"
"Um, Lut, control your hormones."
"I think we're waaaaay beyon' that point, feller."
"Oh, dear."
"Service bot, can we switch seats? I think both me and Perceptor need to sit on the other end of the table …"
"We can take a short recess."
"Agreed."
"Yeppers."
"Oh," Lut pouted, "fine."
"Hey," Blakes whispered to Bango, "I am sure that neither of us want to lose so how about we, um, tip the scales, in a manner of speaking."
"What is on your mind?"
"What do you say to …" he grabbed a bottle of fine grade, "… a little refreshment should bring a whole new, hm, panorama, to the game, don't you think?"
"Well, yer bringin' up a good point. Allow me," Bango took the bottle and sneaked some of it into Perceptor's cube, "Let's see if kiddo can take his alcohol."
"Sirs, recess has come to an end, please take your seats."
"Ah," the microscope sat down and grabbed his drink, "I dare hope that everybody is having fun. Is it not the main point of such an event?"
"Oh, sweetie," Lut arched her back, yet again disgracing everybody's sight with her cleavage, disgruntled that she was unable to establish any more physical contact with the scientist, "We would be having much more entertainment if you …"
"Woman, behave!"
"Indeed!"
"Pardon?"
"Kid, you don' wanna know."
"Um," Optimus turned to his soldier, "If you guys knew the things he and the lambo twins do, you would be …"
"Optimus!"
"Heh, fine."
"I am eager to continue playing! All right then!" The scientist gently smiled, slowly chugged all the contents of his cube and suddenly smashed his head on the table.
"What the …"
"What happened?"
"Feller?"
"Sir, are you ok?"
"Sweetie?"
Perceptor slowly raised his head. Just the way the light his hit his face, revealing the evilest smirk and eyes filled with sheer diabolic devilry, made a nasty chill crawl over their entire bodies.
"Let's have some fun."
"… crap …"
"What have we done …"
"Dear Cybertron …"
"Eep."
"… YOU WILL NEVER TAKE AWAY OUR LOVE! NEVER!"
"Sir! It is an inanimate object!"
"Who are you to decide what is and what isn't inanimate?"
"It's a slot machine!"
"It has feelings too! She is not a toy!"
"It had you in it!"
"… what happened here?"
"The devil! The yellow devil!"
"The what?"
"The yellow devil came and won everything!"
"Everything? Even the new spaceship?"
"He didn't just get all the prizes, I think we are gonna go bankrupt …"
"Ah," the Datsun leaned back on his luxurious chair, cigar in his mouth, a fancy drink on the table, a fembot on his lap and another performing a strip tease as he was shuffling cards after winning a sizeable amount of money at Blackjack, "This is the life!"
"Smokescreen?"
"Yes?" He looked to the door way. "DEVCON?"
"WHAT THE HELL IS THIS?" The blue mech angrily pointed at the two fembots.
"Um, charity!"
"Liar!"
"Um, they are working to get into college?"
"Give me one half-afted reason why I shouldn't shoot you in the face!"
"Um, hey! Look! Is that Dirge?"
"Huh?" The bounty hunter turned to where Smokescreen was pointing but didn't see anyone, "Where?"
"Cheese it!" the psychologist transformed and immediately put up the smokescreen.
"Oh, no you don't!"
Devcon jumped on what he thought was the Datsun just in time and flipped him over.
"Forgot that I am a bounty hunter?"
"Sir!" The smoke cleared up a little bit and it revealed that the one in the bounty hunter's hold was one of the service bots, "He escaped!"
"Grrrr …"
"And he asked me to give you this." The bot pointed at a rather sizeable bag in the corner of the room.
"Hm," Devcon got off the employee, walked to the designated object and opened it up, "A smoke generator? Huh, I guess he does have some shame …"
The game was over, done in under 4 turns after the recess. Nobody else had the money to play other than Perceptor, who was sitting leaned back in his chair, feet on the table, the same evil grin and dangerously playful sparks in his optics still dominating his face.
"Game over."
"Sir, congratulations on winning the game, we hope you will come again."
"All right then," the microscope grabbed another cube of high grade and proceeded to drink it, "I will see you losers, never! Ha! Bye!"
"Wait!" Lut slammed her hands on the table idignantly, she began yelling, "Who do you think you are? I will tell on you to the …"
"And what are you going to tell them? That you lost because you were high on hormones? Please, I heard worse excuses." Perceptor said, making kingly gesture for her to stop pestering him.
"I will not stand by and listen to this from you!"
"Hm, you know what," the red mech paused, looking around the room. Seeing that their argument had attracted a lot of attention, he smirked again, grabbed Lut by the arm and dragged her on to a nearby stage, grabbing the microphone, "Yo! My name P.M.S. and I am about to crank it here so hard, you wish you guys were as awesome as me!"
"Oh, crap," Optimus Prime lost count to how many times he said that already, "What the slag is he going to do this time?"
"DJ!" Perceptor raised his arm and pointed his finger up to the ceiling as something in his chestplate rumbled and immediately gave out a snappy tune to which he break danced:
Hey Miss Lut,
why are you such a slut?
I will make your mouth shut!
You got a huge butt!
Your other body parts just jut!
Let me tell you, you got no guts
And nothing resembling struts!
With a lyrical knife I will make the cut,
You hearing me? You are a nut!
On your planet you may be hot but
Here, you are just some smut!
When it comes to glut
You are in a rut,
So why don't you just crawl back into your hut?
"Ooooooooh, my head!" Perceptor slowly began coming online as a head-cracking ache ravaged his processor, "What happened?"
"What?" Optimus came up to him and helped the scientist into a chair, "You seriously don't remember?"
"No. Oh, dear," he tried getting up but felt too weak to move, "I didn't do anything bad, did I?"
"Well, I will let the MechTube video tell you the story. Hold on, just give it a minute to load."
"All right." The microscope, noticing that the room was no longer spinning, looked around the ship.
Inferno was in the corner, holding on to some sort of a lever and gently stroking it, mumbling something incomprehensible. Bumblebee was sleeping on a pile of energon chips he won from playing Bingo and kept repeating the same word over and over again, "More, more, more!" Smokescreen was carefully piloting the ship with a sizable cigar in his mouth and a huge bag of winnings from the casino.
"Ah! The clip has loaded! There! Enjoy, Perceptor!"
"Hold on, parts and bits are beginning to come back to me …"
"Oh, hey!" Smokescreen joined into the conversation, "You are finally awake! You know, you gotta tell me how you won! You smoked these guys at poker!"
"We were playing poker?"
Author's Notes:
Everybody gets taken in by gambling at some point, you know that at some point in your life you really wanted to come to that poker table and get all the chips off that table while talking in a Texan accent, don't deny it!
At first I really wasn't sure what to do or where to put each of the Autobots where in the casino but as you can see I managed to figure it out. Then I had a fair amount of trouble figuring out what would happen with Optimus and Perceptor, switched the characters they played poker with like good 2-3 times, had to plan out some of the moves which was quite challenging to me because I don't have the slightest clue how to play poker. Well, I played it twice and both times in the first round I got royal flushes ... I hear those things are very rare ...
The in-between parts with Smokescreen, Inferno and Bumblebee I had a fair share of trouble with, they would obviously get out of line taken in by the casino and they would eventually get kicked out or driven away out of there, say, like Smokescreen was by Devcon. That part was actually C.M.D.'s idea and I do have to agree with her, it was a very good one, helped me wrap up that part of the fanfic.
Since Perceptor was kinda the epicenter of this work I thought it to be adequate if I ended the fic with some sort of Perceptor centered scene not only involving his obliviousness but also a certain measure of embarrassment. The lambotwins don't really find out about it *rofl*.
Thanks to C.M.D. for editing and reviewing and laughing!
