The Diego Diaries: HOOPS! (dd6 549)
=0=Getting there
Prime walked out of Ops Center to go to a meet up with the team. They had decided together some time back to 'cheat' and practice, working out plays, finding each others strong suits and weaknesses as well as how the line ups would be. They practiced shooting from distances and close up, from free throw lines and the farthest end of the court. Most of the teams had been hard at it but none of them were as long in the saddle as Iacon.
It wasn't that Prime was a 'cheater'. He just loved basketball. He found it to be strategic, fast, just enough bump and grind short of warfare as well as difficult. That the league had tweaked it with their experiment with goalies of all things only made it that much more fun. He was aware also of the talk in the press about the 'dignity' of a world leader playing a game like this in front of the masses and exposing himself to the possibility of ridicule.
None of them it would seem had grown up in the slums of Iacon.
He was called The Beast in the games they played as kids and with Magnus with him, they were indomitable in the frame crushing sports that the big rough kids had made into a religion. In the few open spaces in their district, they gathered to play Cybertronian football and almost never with Jetta, Magnus, Elita, Arcee and himself on the same team did they ever lose. They often were banged up, chagrined at the level of carnage they could bring to other teams of kids but never did they experience the 'agony of defeat' to the degree others did. He even played on his union's pick up team against other industries, he and the others.
Sports he liked and tried to play when he could. He had been playing solitary games of basketball in the warehouse where he had hoops installed, taking shots and working on his ball handling. He was a beast in this game as well. When the Arena was being raised he asked those he knew the best to join him, those whose skills or ability to learn swiftly to a high degree of ability would meet the level of play he wanted to bring when the inevitable teams were formed.
Arcee and Elita along with Jetta were an easy get. So was Magnus. They were the four horsemen of the Apocalypse before and they would be now. Ironhide and his elders were a surprising but delightful addition, especially Hardie who was agile and strategic, someone who could lead the team even if he couldn't.
He was slagging determined to win.
Watching with a neutral expression his Iacon football team take it in the aft for the past few years, he was determined to get the first ever Mars Cup in basketball for his own home town. Given that Prowl was his shadow, partner in all things and dementedly determined diabolical little co-conspirator as well didn't hurt either. Prowl had spent some time running down the intel on the other teams and though they didn't reach the elegant perfection of Iacon, none of them would be easy. Putting something into a tight space with great force against great and fearsome opposition was something that the soldiers could do with only slight effort. Shooting a gun was just as precise as shooting a basket. That would play out well.
It was in the precision of team play that Prime had worked his edge. He had watched all manner of basketball from Earth and had used it to their own good. Soon, tonight, he would unfurl the best chance any Iaconian team would ever have to get a championship of their own now. Tonight, he would show to the universe what a mech from Iacon, from the ghettos and hard scrabble life therein could do.
He walked out with a light step, then transformed to jet off to the Industrial Park City where in a quiet warehouse he would meet his team for the last practice they would have before their magnificence was revealed to the waiting solar system and greater galaxy beyond.
Hopefully.
=0=Ratchet
He walked to the playground with a hold filled with kids. Sunspot and Spot were off cavorting with Bos and his family. The big kids were having the finals rounds in the dart tournament today and were at 'the club, Ada'. He had the shorties and they wanted to swing and play. So he reached the park at Metroplex and opened his hold. Out came five kids and one little cow. They ran for the swings, then he picked up Robby the Bruce and walked to a bench to sit. He was going to go to Unidad shortly and he might have the kids with him unless the elders overran him like they said they would. He could transform albeit slowly with them in the hold, ending them up in his interior where the 'boot' would be in a normal vehicle. He would. It would be easier than seeing them run screaming around to see old Dad turn into a vehicle.
They were still learning.
It would be a nice interlude chatting at the park with Metroplex.
=0=Warehouse at the Park Cities
They worked out their ball handling, then their shooting from all angles. Gathering, they planned their strategy, worked out their zone defenses, then began to play a game against each other. It would be as hard fought between them as it would be with an actual team. It would be the most fun that most of them had all decaorn, the run up to the unveiling a few joors hence. Everyone would be stoked.
=0=M.C.A. "PRELUDE TO GREATNESS!: The Cybertronian Basketball League of Mars Opening Games", t-minus 4 hours
It had been going on all day and the day before, the conversations among sportscasters and regular news people about the opening of the Cybertronian Basketball League's season of games. Given that Cybertronian football was the most popularly watched sporting event on Earth eclipsing even the World Cup, the idea of basketball with the bots was almost unnervingly anticipated.
That the leader of the Cybertronian world would be on a team along with most of the most famous individuals on his staff was unheard of and many were the conversations raging about it. It was half and half, actually. Many were the humans who wanted Prime to succeed but didn't know what to think about it because human politicians were such wankers. It was difficult to see any of them here doing the same thing let alone walking across a room without tripping over their big feet. Then there was the half that saw this as a gift from God, as a blessing writ large across the heavens. Of course, there was the other ten percent who wondered what was in it for Prime. Was there some political advantage? Were the others going to play less than their best to let him win because they didn't want to get into trouble if he lost? The other 45% thought that was rubbish, that he wasn't a wanker who needed adulation and he would be a T Rex on the court. 32% thought this was no problem for his dignity while -12% thought it was. Many were the politicians on Earth prepared to join gyms and do 'pick up sports' at the sandlot to improve their 'all around guy-ness' and 'relatability' if this proved to be popular. 100% of the electorate of every country on Earth minus a couple of the most repressive regimes were prepared to laugh LOUDLY at any politician who decided to slide into gym shorts and pretend to be an athlete. The youth vote was the only constituency who was still on the fence about the whole thing. But they loved the bots. They were AMAZING tech.
Like that.
It was t-minus 3.46 joors before show time.
=0=Prowl
He paced in the apartment studying a hand held device which held all of the teams and their rosters, all of the intel he had gathered, his PROFUSE notes to Prime about what he expected, didn't expect, hoped not to expect and prayed against for Prime's viewing leisure. It was ludicrous how tense he felt about this as he walked from one end of his living room to the other and back. His genitors fearing celinoid melt down took the kids with smirks and suppressed laughter so he could be alone and fritz.
He had nodded with a distracted air, then continued his pacing. He would continue until Ratchet arrived sans his own kids bearing a profusion of sports gear, pompoms and cheer.
The slagger.
=0=Gampies and Nanas
Venture and Miler sat at the park watching the children swing and chase around. They had taken the children due to Prowl's distraction and deeply held fear and loathing for Optimus and his latest venture into fun and games. Not having a large repertoire on that score, Prowl was seeking through research, data and the well placed algorithm any advantage he could for Optimus.
It was HILARIOUS.
As usual.
Prowl was NOTHING if not loyal.
Securing that Ratchet was coming shortly, they slipped out with the kids. They would take them to the arena to the Primal box and wait for him there. Prowl nodded but he didn't hear. He was working out the mathematics of kneecapping Grimlock at the moment.
Nearby, Ratchet's elders sat at the library reading books to the kids. They were going to take the babies to the arena and the Primal sector and meet up there with Bos, Sunspot and the rest of that branch of the family group. Ratchet would drag Prowl out of his mental collapse and meet them there. The big kids would come with Ammas and Appa. Also, everyone else that was anyone else even in a small way with The Family would be there with bells on and a hold filled with beer.
Some of them, the slaggers.
It was anyone's guess but smart money was on the humans being in their set aside area at center court already.
This game was going to be epic.
Hopefully.
=0=Pregame
Grimlock was in the locker room with his team which had practiced a lot themselves. They were huge and none of them were shrinking violets. Tarn was a formidable town, the home town of Megatron himself. It was the second largest town behind Iacon and hopefully for most of the crowd gathering in the huge arena seating which circled the court all the way to the ceiling 300 feet overhead, it would stay that way.
The sound of the crowd in all three arenas was muffled because the bots knew how to build. They talked about the game, who would do what to whom and how they had to hold their fire.
Literally.
It would be a hard game all around.
=0=Next door in the Iacon locker room
They sat around sipping 'energy drinks' aka beer as they considered the game ahead. They knew it would be filled with fights and slagging but that only made it better. None of them were small and some of them, the slighter ones like Jetta, Arcee, Elita and Hardie were deceptively tough and feisty. Prime was going over their entrance and everyone was agreed. You could only present yourself once to new people so Iaconian slum haka it was. They had practiced it, decided to show their ferocity to the punters to set the tone and when they came out, Prime would lead the charge.
Tonight, Optimus Prime was Orion Pax, child of the slums, son of Kes and Tagg. He would be a child of the District, the Jumble. He would be in person for all of those watching the embodiment of all that was wrong about their previous existence. He would show the world, he would show worlds his true self, his true quality and he would do it with his grand genitors firmly in mind.
The door opened and a referee leaned in. "Show time, gentlemen and ladies."
Prime stood and nodded to the others. They nodded back as Elita picked up their banner. They lined up and followed him out. The door closed silently behind them.
=0=TBC 12-19-18 edited 12-22-18