Diego Diaries: Game (dd6 329)
-0-There
"It would appear that we're down to seven if Warlord gets out of the lake." Rainmaker laughed loudly. "I guess this makes me the leader by default. Your fault, Starscream."
Huge laughter and much gesticulating at the sad sack staring at his little julienned botlet laying in the tower pen. As it was, the remainders, all six of them were flying madly to the crags. It was then that the two bots, Miler and Warlord clambered out of the lake with Miler carrying a shiny silver disk with the glyph 'three' carved on it. HUGE applause greeted that as they staggered to the sidelines. A tech held the disc up. "ONE IS FOUND! DISK 3! A POINT GOES TO RED TEAM AND PURPLE TEAM!"
HUZZAH and a new determination to find the other four burst forth among the malice minded.
It was at that moment that strategy everywhere changed. Shiny objects can do that.
CHARGE!
A mob of bots began to run toward each other on the board. Blue Team headed toward Red Team with the intention of obliteration. Red Team sensing betrayal all around them turned toward Blue and readied themselves for a duel to the death. They made a line across from each other and charged. Turbine and Delphi who were in tank mode drove forward then fired their heavily modified guns directly at Prowl, Prime and Hauser who was running with his guns next to both. The missiles hit the mark and tiny shimmering bits of bot flew in all direction. The game immediately froze in place.
"WHAT THE FRAG!?" Prowl exclaimed as he bent down to look for parts to rescue. He would need a teacup and a sieve to find them. "YOU TERMINATED THE MATRIX, YOU DUMB AFTS!"
Prowl would be allowed his remarks considering he, too, was galloping to the Toy Matrix with the Messiah of His People.
"ALL HAIL DELPHI! ALL HAIL TURBINE!" Ratchet said until Prowl turned to him and punched him in the face. HUGE uproarious laughter at all of them, the slaggers and sore losers.
"I'm back with Red Team," Dev said as he ran toward the teaming line of civilians who didn't have a clue what to do now that the Messiah et al was drop kicked to the Matrix.
"YEAH! GO! DESSERT US, SLAGGER!" Smokescreen said as he grinned at his grandson. Smokey was staring at his botlet sagging on the ground in full blown sub adult angst. Parents of teenagers on Earth would recognize that look in an instant.
"RATCHET! CAN YOU SAVE MY BOT!?" Smokey called out.
Ratchet bent down to stare at the hole through the little bot. "Nope."
Huge laughter.
"CHARGE! TAKE NO PRISONERS! GET THOSE SLAGGING TANKS!" -YELLOW TEAM!, RED TEAM!, BLUE TEAM!, TEAL TEAM!
Everyone ran forward, half of them colliding with the civilians of the other side and tipping over from the rebound. The rest began to slag it out. Ironhide shot everything that moved including one of the legs off his Appa Raptor.
"IRONHIDE!" Raptor said as he activated a hidden talent. A rotor rose from his helm and began to whirl. He rose up and continued to shoot everything that moved including 'accidentally' shooting Ironhide in the aft.
"APPA!" Ironhide grinned as he considered going rogue and tearing up everyone and everything around him. Then he did. BLAM! BLAM! BLAMMA-BLAM!
Delphi came apart at the seams and Hardie disintegrated in a fireball. The game actually stopped. Everyone turned to stare at Ironhide who was grinning at his console. Then he wasn't. "WHAT!?"
"You feckless fragger," Hardie said. He looked at the others. "GET IRONHIDE!"
Everyone on the board turned to him, then he began to run like the wind. Rolling away in a cloud of dust followed by Raptor and his tiny rotor head, he ran for the maze and disappeared inside. Yellow Team who was chasing him slowed, then turned on Red Team. BLAM-A-BLAMMA-BLAMMA-BLAM!
Raptor flew back to help. He was nothing if not loyal.
Mostly.
Not being predators, backstabbers or the other kinds of low lives that made up the regular Autobot Army of Yore, Willa, Artur, Tab, Faun, Holi, Coln-2, and the redoubtable Venture went up in a flash of confetti. That left the veterans Dev, Wheeljack, Percy and sweet, sweet Miler. They ran for the hills.
To regroup.
*cough*
"WELL. ISN'T THIS JUST GREAT! SMOOTH MOVE, DEV!" Prowl offered.
*cough*
Dev grinned, then gathered the remnants in the area near the Razor Maze.
Yellow Team led by Sunny glanced around to see what was left. "There's Teal Team. Destroy them." He then raised his swords and the team followed as they chased the Teal Team back to their fort north of Pretty Ocean and the Razor Wire. They got inside and boarded up the door.
"What now, Elita?" Magnus asked with a smirk.
"We obliterate them, Magnus. Is there any other way?" Elita asked with a smirk.
"No," Magnus said with a satisfied grin of his own.
Ironhide sidled up to Drift and Springer who were smirking at his audacity. :How about the three of us taking on everyone?:
:You mean the one, the half and the other half of us?: Springer asked.
:BWAHAHAA! Of course. Wait for this: Ironhide said as behind him rising from a box was the heavily armed and mighty Helicopter of Doom. It made it over his helm and flew toward the maze. Sitting down on it, the rotors stopped. "GET ON BOARD! NOW!" Ironhide bellowed as his little mech jumped on. Emerging from the fronds of the bushes, two half a mechs running on their hands clawed their way on board. It was sort of sickening, the sight of them.
:There's bombs on board. When I tell you, drop them overboard: Ironhide said as he flew toward Teal Fort and the convergence of armies. Everyone watched, then began to shoot upward but the bullets and missiles didn't go that high. They fell back and thus, Edict, Riff and Rad-R went to the Matrix together. Ironhide had obliterated three more members of his own team.
By their own hands.
"LET THIS BE A LESSON TO YOU ABOUT UNGRATEFUL INFANTS! EVERYONE! GET THAT HELICOPTER!" Blackjack said as Alor nodded.
More firepower booked it upward and all of it fell back. But now, the little bots shooting were able to dodge things. Just as the last missile fell short, Ironhide arrived over Teal Fort. Just as they were trying to leave, bombs went away. Down, down they went dropped by half a mechs and a gleefully maddened master of the army who apparently really, really wanted to win this time. They were carefully aimed to drop in the middle of the enclosed structure in numbers and ferocity and they did.
They also exploded together doubling and tripling their explosive power.
Lee-Lee's head, Mack's torso, all of the femmes but Elita and Arcee along with Maelstrom's left arm flew outward shredding anything in its path.
Goodbye, Laret, Neo, Sandstorm, and Bluestreak.
"WHAT THE ?!" -Neo, Laret, Sandstorm, and Bluestreak.
Blackstone and Barron finally getting the gate open walked into the massed swords of Sunstreaker and Sideswipe who made neat little piles of their pieces parts in the doorway. It was then that the helicopter flew off the game board to reload.
"HE'S RELOADING! MAKE DEALS! PROVIDE A UNITED FRONT! LET'S GET THAT TURNCOAT SLAGGER!" Raptor rallying (what's left of) the troops.
That was then what was left of Grimlock who had clawed his way out of all his many trials and tribulations made it to the underground fort and disappeared. Willies were had by all.
-0-As it stood now …
Big Bot Team: all of them were still operational but the Supremes.
Dinobots: the only one still roaming free was Grimlock. He was underground doing who knew what with who knew who. Raptors were somehow in the equation.
Hu-An: biding their time and laughing uproariously from the sidelines next to their fort.
Brown: Fighting off the Yellow Team which wasn't hard now. They had all their members and great leadership.
Yellow Team: It consisted of Bob, Sunstreaker, Sideswipe, and Smokescreen.
Red Team: It was becoming a faded memory as it was now whittled down to Wheeljack, Perceptor and Devcon when he wasn't scoping out a better platform for victory.
Teal Team: Having been ground down to filth as the drag queens sometimes say, it consisted of Arcee, Elita, Magnus who was seething at dear old dad (in-law), Maxi, and Gee-Gee, two of the more kick ass femmes. A one armed Maelstrom was also there in deep grieving over the late Chromia. She was seething, too. She was also considering stealing Maelstrom's console to get even with Dear Old Dad.
Even as she admired his audacity to the maximum.
Purple Team with the seething and recently late Starscream consisted of Warlord, Rainmaker and five others who got lucky. They were in the crags trying not to fall in and get stuck.
Blue Team or THE BETRAYED consisted at this rendering of Raptor of The One Leg and Helicopter Head, Turbine, Alor, Blackjack, and a wavering Fireball who wasn't looking forward to decapitating Daddy. Ironhide, Springer and Drift had been excommunicated from EVERYTHING and EVERYWHERE including Blue Team.
The &^%$ TRAITORS!
Free Range had everyone. Jetta, Mack, Bee, Jazz and Mirage, Proteus and improbably, Charlotte and Seymour. Who knew?
Oceania Team was having a margarita on the seashore nearby. Everyone apparently had forgotten them.
The game had dwindled from 189 players to 68.
LET THE GAMES BEGIN!
Ironhide who was newly loaded to the gunnels lifted off and headed out to bomb the slag out of everyone. Given that he had the range of their guns, he flew just above them as he headed toward Free Range Team. They began to run but were boxed in between Razor Maze and the (Deep Blue) Pretty Ocean (Sea). It was like shooting fish in a barrel. Some of them ran for the ocean and leaked energon all the way to the bottom. By the time he pulled up to come around, Proteus, Mirage, Bee, Mack, and Jazz were either dead or on their way. Ratchet was running out to save them when a big black helicopter with a Gatling gun strapped to its undercarriage unloaded on him.
Ratchet flew apart and his helm with flag attached landed near Lennox on the sideline.
He dibs it, of course.
It was as quiet as a tomb.
Then sound slammed back in as the entire group unloaded on Ironhide with all their fury and laughter. He smirked as they did. He glanced at Ratchet who smirked at him. "That was a low blow, Ironhide. GYPSY! CAMBO! AID! SAVE THE WOUNDED!"
They tried.
The bodies were piling up from Team BACK STABBER aka Ironhide, UTS and UTD.
The chopper hoovered as the others began to run for it. Then it turned its long range guns onto the crags where the Seekers were trying to be nonchalant and invisible. They transformed to lift off and some made it. Rainmaker, Warlord and his other son, Blast Hole flew upward and onward to the far away mountains but the others didn't. Their soft underbellies were stitched by the Gatling gun and they exploded over the hills. Falling back to earth like ruptured ducks, they peppered everything and everyone around.
Cliffie who was still in the mountains was bellowing on the sidelines as a distraught Buzzie watched. "Maybe its a good thing where you are, Cliffie," Buzzie whispered as he leaned forward toward Cliff. "If they forget you're there and kill each other, you win as the last bot standing."
Cliff considered that, then did a very uncharacteristic thing. He buttoned his pie hole.
Yes. Buzzie was very good for Cliffie.
Ironhide at that moment turned his attentions on the big frames. There were about five titans, the spare Metroplex with mini-con embellishments, and the little kids. Siting in on Typhoon, he let her rip. It did. Ty's face came apart at the seams. It burst into flames and fell off. His bot staggered but stayed upright.
"WHAT THE FRAG!? WHAT KIND OF AMMO ARE YOU USING, IRONHIDE!?" Typhoon asked as the others began to book it.
"BIG AMMO!" Ironhide said as he flew after Metroplex, Little 'Plex, Caminus, Fort Max, and Tyke. They were running along the sidelines for some reason when safety was just three feet away. None of them took it until the helm of Caminus flew past them after taking the direct hit of two powerful missiles. Then they stepped off and took stock.
The helm of Caminus was rolling around next to the Mountains of Doom. Typhoon was burning like the penthouse of a skyscraper as his carcass stood on the tarmac of their fort. Xantium and Omega were laughing and taunting them with great satisfaction as Kappa shook her helm at their antics.
It wasn't going well for Team Tall.
The nine kids retreated to the sidelines to consult.
Ironhide along with UTD and UTS flew back to the sidelines to rearm from their never ending Box of Death.
That's when Grimlock emerged from underground with six Raptors. He was riding on the back of one of them swinging a sword.
The game had just become interesting.
-0-TBC 4-15-18 edited 4-16-18
Gatling gun: first repeating machine gun around which was first used in the American Civil War. It shot big bore ammo out at alarming rates. It was as big as a small cannon to use and move.