Disclaimer: I don't own Transformers or any of the characters mentioned in the story. They are trademarks of Hasbro and the other companies responsible for their creation. So pleeez don't sue me. Okay I was wrong in saying that the Autobots would not appear in this story, they do, but this is about the most you will see of them besides occasional cameo appearances.
When We Were Young
Chapter 4 – Game Day
It was the day of the big game! Polyhex City was a buzz with excitement. They said it would be the biggest game of the year, second only to the championships. The Decepticon Academy vs. the Autobot Academy!
Megatron soon found out why the academy had its 100-foot walls. Within an hour, the entire academy had transformed in to a giant stadium, complete with playing field, seats and concession stands. Underneath the stadium were the aptly named "war rooms" where the War Ball teams would discuss strategy before going on to the field.
"Primus! They have replaced the entire team." Said Astrotrain upon receiving the Autobot team list.
"What!"
"What do you mean?"
"How?"
The team gathered around Astrotrain and looked over the list of opponents.
"You're right Astrotrain. I don't remember the any of these guys from last year." Thundercracker looked over Astrotrain's shoulder at the list. "I wonder why they ditched Orion Pax for this Optimus Prime guy."
"I don't know, I've never heard of him, and Orion Pax had some skills. Well, let's turn this to our advantage." Said Astrotrain.
"Who's the referee this game?" asked Dirge
"It's Skyfire isn't it?" said Thrust
"I can't wait to get out there and kick some Autobot aft!" Shouted Ramjet
"I hear ya'!" A vicious smile spread across Skywarp's face.
Astrotrain turned to Megatron, "are you ready?"
Megatron smirked.
"I've waiting for this all week…"
Meanwhile, back at Maxima's house Soundwave and Shockwave were diligently working on their week's end homework.
Suddenly the soft tapping of computer keys stopped from Soundwave's end of the table. Shockwave looked up in surprise. Soundwave had stopped typing and was looking out the window. Shockwave followed Soundwave's line of sight, he wanted to see what could have caught the focus of a robot spent more time on a computer than he did. Soundwave was looking in the direction of the academy, now a stadium.
'Odd,' thought Shockwave. 'Soundwave has never shown any interest in sports before.'
"Soundwave?"
Soundwave turned to face Shockwave. "Shockwave, explain the rules of Metal War Ball."
"Metal War Ball? Well I… I… I don't know much about it. Um…"
"We should educate ourselves then."
"What?" Shockwave tilted his head in confusion. He had a feeling of what Soundwave was trying to say, but he couldn't believe it.
"We should watch and educate ourselves on the academy popular sport."
"Soundwave I don't think I see your reasoning why we should…" Shockwave started, but then, as he looked at Soundwave he noticed something he had never seen before. Behind Soundwave's emotionless exterior, Shockwave could tell that, for whatever reason, he really wanted to watch the game, education or not. Soundwave had been through a lot that week, usually Shockwave did not concern himself with what happened to Soundwave, but even he had to admit Blitzwing's brutality toward the silent robot was horribly uncalled for. So Shockwave decided, for once, to humor Soundwave. "All right Soundwave, let's watch the game."
Skyfire stepped out on to the field. "Captains! It's time for the coin toss, please approach the center of the field."
From the Autobot side came the new captain Optimus Prime.
From the Decepticon side came Astrotrain.
"All right I want a good clean game from both teams. Remember no guns, swords or any other projectile and external weapons, and NO TRANSFORMING! Astrotrain call the toss."
"Tails."
Skyfire tossed the coin…
Starscream sat impatiently next to Maxima. A pang of annoyance ran through his mental circuits when Skyfire announced that the Autobots had won the toss, but it was soon forgotten when the energy force shield came up to protect the audience from some of the more violent antics of the players. Then a panel at each end of the playing field floor opened. Out from each of the panels floated a ring slightly larger than a transformer. Starscream heard a loud cheer begin to rise up as he watched the Decepticon goalkeeper, Thundercracker, fly out on to the field and take his place in front of the Decepticon goal ring. The cheers subsided slightly when the Autobot goalkeeper took his position in front of the Autobot goal ring. The other players of each team came out and took to their respective positions on the game field floor.
"Members of the audience," the announcer's voice came over the stadium speakers. "Here are your competitors! On the Autobot team is the new captain Optimus Prime, playing center forward. Jazz as right forward, Sunstreaker as left forward, Ironhide as center defense, Prowl as right defense, Brawn as left defense, and finally Bluestreak, as goalkeeper, taking the place of Sideswipe who is one the injured list."
"Now on team Decepticon, we have team captain Astrotrain playing right forward. New member Megatron, taking the place of Blitzwing, as center forward, Skywarp as left forward, Thrust as center defense, Dirge as right defense, Ramjet as left defense. And last, but sure as hell not the least, goalkeeper THUNDERCRACKER!"
A roar of cheers erupted from the Decepticons in the stadium at the announcement of Thundercracker's name. Not one point had been scored against Thundercracker all year, and he was aiming to become the first transformer to ever go a perfect season as goalkeeper. There were only four quarters standing between him and the ultimate goal of his young life. He wanted it, the team wanted it, and in fact the entirety of the Decepticon population wanted it with him. An achievement like this would boost Decepticon morale a hundred fold.
Skyfire walked to the middle of the field and called the two center forwards to step up. Megatron and Optimus Prime faced each other.
"May the best team win."
Skyfire tossed the ball into the air.
"Let the game begin…!"
" And folks we are now nearing the end of the third quarter, and what game we have the score is tied at zero to zero and it doesn't look like anyone is willing to give up."
Astrotrain watched in stunned silence as the Decepticon Metal War Ball team was falling apart. He just couldn't believe it, the only thing that was keeping the Decepticon team from total disaster was Thundercracker's desire for goal keeping perfection. Astrotrain's thoughts were interrupted when he saw something silver rushed past him.
Megatron flew at top speed toward the Autobot goal ring. Bluestreak spread out his arms and legs to cover as much of the goal as possible until he was sure of what move Megatron was going to make. Ironhide charged toward Megatron. The silver transformer tossed the ball to the awaiting arms of Skywarp who took off upon receiving it. Prowl and Sideswipe flew up alongside of Skywarp with the intent of giving him a good side ways bashing. Unfortunately they either forgot or didn't know about Skywarp's special ability, the ability for which he had his name. One second he was there, the next he was gone. Sideswipe and Prowl ended up crashing into each other, while Skywarp reappeared in front of the Autobot goal ring.
'Ha I'm gonna score the winning goal!' thought Skywarp.
Then…
BOOM!
Goalkeeper Bluestreak barreled into Skywarp, just barely a micro second before the ball left Skywarp's hand. It bounced off the rim of the goal ring and fell uselessly into Prowl's possession. He took off toward the Decepticon side of the field. Just before he reached the field midline he passed the ball to the waiting hands of Sunstreaker, who had his sights set on breaking the perfection of the infamous goalkeeper, Thundercracker!
Out of the corner of his one optic he saw Ramjet charging toward him at full speed, out of the other optic he saw Dirge doing the same thing. "Heh, sorry guys I was already on to your scheme even before you started it.' Sunstreaker smirked to himself. ' You guys are planning to hit me when I get close to the goal ring allowing Thundercracker easy ball retrieval. Too bad I'm not gonna cooperate with your little plan.'
Sunstreaker put on his jet brakes and watched, with a big smile on his face, as Dirge and Ramjet smashed into each other. However, Sunstreaker's pleasure was short lived.
"Sunstreaker! Look out!"
Sunstreaker turned just in time to see something blue coming at his face. Pain shot through his head when the blue thing impacted the place between his optics. In his dazed state the ball was jerked from his hands by a blue thing, with wings…?
BUZZ!
"Oh what a play by Thundercracker! Well folks three quarters down and one to go in this exciting game! We will take a short break and then finish the last fifteen minutes of the game."
The Decepticon team met next to their goal ring.
"Guys I just have one thing to say." Said Thundercracker in an almost pleading voice. "You guys have got to score a goal before this game is over, because after having the Autobots in my goal territory for three quarters of the game so far, I'm not going to hold up in the after game, kick-off, tie breaker."
Astrotrain looked at Thundercracker with sympathy, the goalkeeper was so close to his ambition, and it would be the worst tragedy ever, if they let it slip away. "Thundercracker's right you guys we're falling apart here."
"I don't get it Astrotrain, it's like they know every single on of our plays," spat Thrust.
Suddenly Astrotrain felt a horrible realization dawn on him. "I think I know why."
The team's attention to their captain.
"Remember when our laptop disappeared for 24 hours, two days ago. Apparently, we hadn't just 'misplaced' it."
"It was STOLEN!"
"Thank you Dirge, stator of the bleeding obvious." Shouted Skywarp.
"Shut up Skywarp! I didn't exactly see you kick aftwhen you made a teleport for that goal."
"Oh yeah? How about you 'Mr. I'm-stupid-enough-to-crash-into-my-partner.' Maybe if you actually did some defending out there, Thundercracker wouldn't be so out of it!" Retorted Skywarp.
"I'm not out of it." Thundercracker snapped back.
"All right you guys, knock it off!" Shouted Astrotrain.
"Fellow Decepticons! There is a simple solution to our problem." The team focused their optics on Megatron. "If our plays have been stolen, we simply make up new ones."
"Ok genius." Astrotrain crossed his arms and narrowed his optics. "Got any ideas?"
"As a matter of fact I do…"
Soundwave and Shockwave had over the course of the game moved from the table across the room from the viewing screen, to basically having their optics press up against it.
"You know Soundwave, this sports game stuff is strangely entertaining."
Soundwave nodded in response.
"Hm, it seems as if our team is figuring out what to do." Said Shockwave.
"Megatron is doing the talking. He is taking leadership from Astrotrain." Soundwave's monotone voice finally made itself known.
"Yes he is, maybe they'll started scoring some points now."
"Affirmative. Change in present strategy should increase chance of success."
"Well, my prediction is that we shall have to wait and see."
5 minutes left in the game, but the score still remained zero to zero. However things had changed, the Autobots had been in possession of the ball on the Decepticon side for the majority of the game, now it was the Decepticons who remained on the Autobot's side of the field.
"Timeout!" Megatron called out and the game stopped. All of the Decepticon players gathered around Megatron. "All right, 5 minutes left now it's time to pull our ultimate play. Astrotrain, Skywarp, you know what to do."
The Decepticons took their positions on the field. Skyfire signaled for the game to restart. Megatron charged forward Optimus Prime flew to meet him. However, instead of continuing to Blitz, like Megatron made it look. He threw the ball straight up into the air. Meanwhile Skywarp and Astrotrain launched themselves toward the ball. Astrotrain grabbed for the ball, while Skywarp teleported. Astrotrain raced towards the Autobot goal ring, with the other Autobots in hot pursuit. Bluestreak flew out of goal territory to intercept Astrotrain right in his tracks, but this left the goal ring wide open. Bluestreak tackled Astrotrain, but Bluestreak had made a terrible mistake.
DING!
"And we finally have a point on the scoreboard! And only 60 seconds left!"
Bluestreak stared in horror at Skywarp hovering in front of the goal, smirking evilly.
" You tricked us!" Shouted Bluestreak.
"Not exactly, only let you believe what you wanted to believe. You believed that I had the ball, and I didn't make a move to discourage that belief. Now if you'll excuse me, I have a game to play." Astrotrain left in pursuit of Optimus Prime, who now had possession of the ball.
Optimus Prime was aiming to tie the game. He was mere feet away when a silver transformer rammed into his side. The ball dropped from Optimus Prime's hand.
Sunstreaker was quick to intercept. He wanted revenge for the damage Thundercracker had done to his face. He launched the ball with all of the strength he could muster to the Decepticon goal ring.
Thundercracker reached for it…
"HE CAUGHT IT!" The announcer's voice rang out from the speakers. "I CAN'T BELIEVE HE CAUGHT IT! TIME IS UP! GAME IS OVER! DECEPTICON VICTORY…!"
Oh My God! 15 reviews! You guys are so wonderful! I thank you all from the bottom of my heart and with tears of joy in my eyes. In the next chapter it's party time for the Decepticons! And Soundwave reveals his new and very special project. Please keep the reviews coming, and don't be afraid to leave your opinions on character portrayals and things you would like to see. Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!
P.S. Don't get me wrong, I love Thundercracker, but with how the rest of the story goes I can't have him be the captain of the team. I hope you will be happy with him being the record-breaking goalie and the most popular guy on the team.