The Diego Diaries: PLAY BALL! (dd6 587)
NOTE: I was at some point going to print this for myself so I put the pieces end to end on one page. It would make a book with 27,388 pages so far. The Encyclopedia Britannica has 32,640. :D Just so you know. LOL! Nothing like trivia for the LULZ.
=0=Moments later at the scene of the crime
They stood side by side, arms folded over their chassis with optics staring straight ahead at the scene around the arena. At their feet a flattened disk that once was a trumpet lay on the ground. Pressed into its once shiny surface was the footprint of a winged avenger.
Ratchet grinned slightly. "You know, Granny, if you left your girdle at home in your cosplay box you might get my genius. You can play 'Town Marshall And Uptight Schoolmarm Who's A Hooker With A Heart Of Gold On The Side' after the game."
Prowl gazed at Ratchet's beautiful profile with an effort not to laugh out loud. "You who are insane dare critique me?"
"I'm your raging ID, Prowler, the part of you that's so repressed and tamped down that when it ever blows will make quasars look like drinking fountains. Trust me," Ratchet said as he looked at the shorter mech with a dazzling smile.
Prowl smirked slightly. "Is that so."
"It is," Ratchet said as he warmed up to his own bullshit. "I have a piece of paper that allows me to say so. Doctor Ratchet, MD, PDQ, RSVP."
"I have one, too. It's says, "Prowl who is Second-In-Command of the Autobots has the right to slag anyone who deigns to hold such organization in ill repute to a short trip into the outback of the beyond with a carefully placed kick'."
Ratchet laughed. "Good one. Show me, slagger."
"I don't have to show you anything, fragger, but my genius," Prowler said as he warmed up to his own.
Bullshit, that is, a skill he acquired about the time he and Ratchet were stationed together for more than five orns.
His Ada listening in spite of himself grinned. "You can show me, son."
They both glanced back as Miler smiled. He was holding an equally smiling Prima.
With a sleight of hand that would surprise Houdini, Prowl liberated Prima, frowned prettily at Ratchet, then looked at his ada. "No, but I will take the sparkling."
Miler laughed. "You look just like you did in every photo image that I have of you since you were born."
Prowl schooled his face to impassive. "You're hanging out with Ratchet too much. His delusion is rubbing off on you.'
"I don't know. Let me show the arena your mugshots and let them vote," Ratchet said reaching for his helm.
A fist to the gut took care of that. Prowl frowned at him, Miler laughed long and loud while Prima watched everyone with big pretty optics.
Rather like his brother's.
It was then that the siren sounded and the game was ready to resume. Everyone roared, then watched as Kaon walked out after a long discourse about Iacon in the locker room …
"We could just mow them down. There's no rules against football moves in this game. Yet," Huge-E said with a grin.
Everyone looked at Sideswipe and Sunstreaker. They looked back. "What?" -both
"If we put them in the hospital, half of them are your relatives," Rad-R said stating the unspoken.
The twins stared at him, then the others. "And your point?"
HUGE laughter.
Mostly.
Behind them carrying their banner, Iacon walked out led by Prime and caboosed by Hard Drive. Between the two, the rest of the team swaggered out, huge, smirking with delight, their afts swinging and their grins huge and amused. They were hilarious.
"That infant," Steiner said as he stood with Jack, Sun, Lissie, Trooper and Scout next to Kes and Tagg. "Look at him."
They did. Lissie grinned. "Ironhide is a much admired little mech. I do remember when he was small. His son, Orion is the living image of him then. No one can really age him, he's so sweet," she said doing the same thing, too.
Jack and the others grinned, then glanced at the tiny femme between them with the storied career and tender regard.
Steiner hugged her. "He is cute. So is Blackjack and Raptor. Nice kids, all of them."
The nice kids were laughing and swaggering in, their delight at the game obvious. The teams lined up to face each other, then the players walked out to take their places for the jump ball. Huge-E was back to face Optimus who grinned at him. Jetta and Arcee were with him as forwards this time while Chromia and Elita were defense with Hardie.
The twins including of all mechs, Sideswipe were front line with Hugh-E and the rest of the team included Topper, Spangle, a youngling with potential backed them while Bracket was the goalie once more.
The refs got set, then one threw the ball upward for Prime and Hugh-E. They jumped so fast that the ref didn't clear in time and was caught between them like a mouse in a trap.
That is, if the trap was a piano dropped from the top of the Empire State Building.
A loud clang was heard, then both mechs landed and looked down, Prime with the ball in his servos. His innate decency made it his first response to stop and look while the twins who could feign decency most of the time but not now leaped on him over the huddled mass of the ref on the floor.
They landed on Prime like velociraptors on a big metallic building. He didn't fall or stumble back, though the two were nearly four tons of scheming clawing malice. He stepped back to protect the ref carrying them with him as he held the ball in his servos.
They clung to him, hanging like limp dishrags on a line, then let go, dropping to the floor to the laughter and derision of the crowd.
Prime grinned at them as they smirked back, then stepped even farther back to accommodate the emerging flood of infant do gooders heading like heat seeking missiles to the downed ref. They gathered around him just as Ratchet landed on the ground from the Primal Box.
Again.
He walked toward the crowd which parted like the Red Sea, kneeling to check out the pile of automotive parts that used to be a mech.
"Well, isn't this special," Ratchet said as he scanned the ref. "I think every strut in his chassis is broken along with his will to live." He glanced up at the two behemoths who were staring at Ratchet with alarm. "Good on you."
Huge-E glanced at Prime then Ratchet. "Uh, how is he? Is he alright?"
"After we spackle him together, he's going to be fine but he needs a bunch of work." Ratchet glanced at the kids. "We need a kit and a stretcher, infants."
They nodded as one, then ran all at once to their three tunnels to return with three kits and three stretchers. Everyone applauded them as Ratchet chose one thing from each group and two 'helpers' from the one left over. They watched him brace the mech against further breakage, then showed with the two helper kids and three of the players how to load a patient.
The rest leaned in to watch, their expressions rapt as they drank in every syllable he said. They didn't even seem to notice that they were on television in the middle of a huge multi-planetary event. Ratchet put the mech in restraints, then scanned him again. "He's going to be dandy. How about you two helping Springer and Drift carry him out?"
The two kids nodded, then gripping a side 'helped' to raise the stretcher from the floor. They walked out, the rest following to the tunnel and a waiting ambulance outside. They took the goodwill and applause of the crowd with them on several worlds, forward bases, front line forts and dens of thieves all over the quadrant as well.
Ratchet walked to the steps and climbed up again joining Prowl and the others. "This is getting to be a soap opera. Check Prime's chassis for that mech's optical ridges tonight. I'll reattach them tomorrow when I do my rounds."
"He's banged up?" Prowl asked with concern as he looked at the object of it, his concern that is, Optimus who was standing at center court discussing things with the surviving refs.
Oh, and the guy that got hurt? That one? Hope he's okay.
"He's busted ass as the humans say. It would be easier to say what wasn't munched than tell you his actual wounds but don't let that bother you," Ratchet asked as he noted who Prowl was giving his concerned face to a holy figure of great majesty (tm) down below.
"I won't," he said as he glanced at Ratchet. "That slagger is also a football ref."
"Well, that explains it," Ratchet said as the behemoths down below lined up again. The ref who was too scared to stand in the usual place sort of tossed the ball as high as he could from several feet away, then watched as Huge-E and Prime came together.
Prime bumped Huge-E with his hip as he caught the ball. He immediately regretted it as a signal shot up his hip to his processor setting off any number of red flags. Apparently, the Sears Tower in Chicago had a lot in common with Huge-E concerning foundational braces and (metaphorical) sub basements. Pain shot through him as he spun to give the ball to Chromia.
Chromia gripped it, slipped past Prime and the race was on. The twins chased her around attempting to steal the ball from Chromia, then Arcee, then back to Elita, to Jetta, back to Arcee, into the hoop for another score, back to Jett-
Sideswipe halted in the circular dance of doom to stare at his servos. Then he spun around to check everyone elses. Given that the ball was through the hoop already and back to the refs who were looking at everyone with the same look cops have just before they taze you, the ball was nowhere to be found in the dazed mob hulking around on the court.
"FRAG!" Sideswipe said as he skid before Jetta who was laughing loudly.
"HA-HA! EAT THAT!" Jetta said just before Sideswipe jumped on him and down they went.
Arcee jogged to Elita and Chromia who were standing side-by-side watching the show as the boys rolled on the ground together, Jetta laughing loudly as they did. "Who you betting on?"
"I'm partial to the home town boy," Elita said with a grin.
The cameras centered on them as they watched the sideshow. Prime had gone to the sideline to watch as well. Anytime it wasn't him on the bottom of a fight it was all for the better. Jetta could handle himself.
Way back in the orn …
"Where is Jetta, Ariel?"
A big gangling mech with the promise of a primal sized frame stood in the doorway of Jetta's tenement with a home made ball in his servos.
Ariel aka Elita-1 some fine orn glanced up from his book. "Down the alley. Are you playing 'kill the carrier'?" he asked with a grin. He was never adverse to a good mauling himself.
"I am if I can find him. Maybe we can get more players," Orion Pax aka Optimus Prime in the far distant future replied.
Ariel and Orion stepped out, then walked to the corner to cross to the next tenement in the blistering heat of high summer. Here, there were no amenities to make life better but for the ingenuity of the tenants. Heat was bitterly hot in the long summers and cold was even colder in the winter orns of Cybertron when you lived in a dump.
Down the alley they could hear yelling. Running forward, they passed old pallets and garbage cans to come to a small open space in the long twisting alley. In the middle of a pool of light from a small overhead fixture, Jetta of Iacon was getting and giving the whooping of a life time from three big kids from another gang down the tenement. Apparently, they were asserting themselves here on this turf and decided he would be their starting point.
"DON'T JUST STAND THERE!" Jetta called as he punched as fast as he could. He was doing a great job but it was only a matter of time before they would by sheer numbers overtake him.
They helped. Then they went to play ball. Such was life in a ghetto for the tough poor kids that lived there …
"He still has it," Prime said as he paused beside the three femmes.
"He does. Looks, smarts, skills. That's my boy," Elita said proudly.
They rolled around, then hopped up bouncing around each other looking for another opening. Then they paused, slapped servos and walked to their sides.
Sideswipe grinned as he watched Jetta walk to Prime. "ANOTHER TIME!"
Jetta looked over his shoulder with a smile on his handsome face. "YOU'RE ON!"
Ratchet who was watching with a grin of his own glanced at Prowl. "That's my boys."
"Better you than me," Prowl said with a smirk. "Hoodlums. I might have to arrest someone."
"Give it time, Prowler. You have five sons and a few grandchildren thrown in. I, myself hope they're as photogenic in their hoodlum years as you were." Then he sent several of Prowl's more Gothic sneers to the jumbotron by WIFI.
PLAY BALL!
=0=TBC 2-6-19 edited 2-7-29
ESL:
Feign: (fane) to fake
ID: (ih-d) Sigmund Freud says: According to Sigmund Freud's psychoanalytic theory of personality, the ID is the personality component made up of unconscious psychic energy that works to satisfy basic urges, needs, and desires. The ID operates based on the pleasure principle, which demands immediate gratification of needs. If your ID is raging, you're a wild aft. Usually.