Chapter 2: The Seekers and Game Night
Transformers: not mine neither is the game
"Yet another day gone, another lost battle with the Autobots, and no closer to having even a fraction of the energy this primitive organic dirt ball has available. I am sick of waiting on Megaton to actually do something. If I were in charge we would have destroyed the Autobots, drained this planet and returned to rule Cybertron unopposed eons ago. Do you have any idea of how tired I am of hearing our so called leader shout 'Decepticons retreat!'?"
Thundercracker and Skywarp didn't even hear the last of Starscream's rambling. They heard it so many times before and Thundercracker spent the last few nanoklicks of his rant laughing silently, while Skywarp mocked this most recent rant. That only served to make Thundercracker laugh harder resulting in getting his trine mate's attention.
"Shut up, you!" Starscream shouted at them when he realized what they were doing. "Are you not tired of this? It would be good to consider where your loyalties lie because one day things will change."
"Yeah, yeah, whatever Starscream, I have no plans on switching sides now or ever, and I am certain that is what you mean when you talk about our loyalties." Thundercracker told him trying to sound convincing. He could never be too sure if one of Soundwave's spies happened to be creeping around the warship, and he was definitely not going to take any more of Lord Megatron's wrath this day. They only had a few hours of it left. "Let's do something to get this nightmare of a day off our processers so we can at least recharge peacefully."
Starscream looked doubtful. "And just what do you propose we do? It is not like we have an over abundance of high grade to overcharge ourselves with!"
He was about to respond with something equally sarcastic when he noticed Skywarp was no longer in the room. 'Primus, no! Please not tonight' he thought knowing Skywarp's affinity for funny but cruel pranks. He was about to head to his quarters as quickly as possible to avoid confrontation when he heard the static crackle of someone teleporting and Skywarp appeared with a Cybertronian sized version of the humans game Monopoly .
"It seems Thundercracker is fonder of the natives than we thought! Plan on playing this with one of the humans you happen to capture and keep as a pet eh, Thundercracker?"
"It helps to understand your enemy" he answered defensively."And this one is a game of-"he paused a moment, "acquisition" His optics glowing with mischief. "The bot who acquires all the credits and land wins" Skywarp looked doubtful. "There is a strategy to it." He was careful with his choice of words.
Starscream was skeptical. "Ok" he finally answered deciding he had nothing better to do and it would be a while before he could recharge in the state of mind he was in currently. He hated forcing his systems into recharge. "At least I can prove my dominance with some ridiculous human game and we can recharge."
He set the game up and after a mini brawl over their pieces, there was only one plane, they began. Thundercracker's strategy was to purchase everything he could while the others attempted to save credits for the more costly items. As a result he was winning. "You owe me 300 credits for attempting to wage war on me in Char!" Thundercracker informed Starscream as he continued to count his credits. "That will bring my total to 8,796 credits" he reached out awaiting payment. Starscream growled.
The game went on for a couple of megacycles and Starscream grew tired and wanted to capitalize on what he had. . He decided to end his by attempting to use most of his credits to construct additions to his lands specifically by building a moon base on Cybertron.
"You can't do that! I rule Earth*." Skywarp growled.
"And what does that have to do with anything? Cybertron is mine to do with as I please."
"Not in this game. You have to control both or all of the same color. That is why I didn't build a base on Iacon. That is also why it is called Monopoly."
"I will take it then!" He screamed as he pointed his null ray at the board.
This got the attention of Thundercracker who was still silently counting credits."Stop!" he yelled and knocked Starscream away, knocking over the game in the process.
"You moron! Now I have no idea where everything was!"
"Oh well. It is late anyway. I win! I am going to recharge." Thundercracker stormed out with his game in tow.
"Don't worry," Skywarp told Starscream. "He will look nice covered in pink spakles when he reports for duty in the morning."
Starscream only laughed.
A/N Thanks to Giddy for the review. I think the idea of Rumble, or even an Autobot tormenting Ravage with a laser pointer would be great. I might write that into another ficlet.
I initially thought of the Con's playing poker but then I thought a more strategic game would be better for war hungry, defeated, board Decepticons. I saw the collectors Transformers edition of Monopoly, and decided to go with that. The game can go on for hours so that is why I added the 'theft aspect to it, to hurry it along. It is cons playing after all. I imagined Starscream would attempt to cheat. I have a cousin I refuse to play with because she tries to do what screamer did.
*Earth is Park place and Cybertron is Boardwalk in the traditional game