The Diego Diaries: HURRAY! (dd7 29)
=0=On the way back to down town
They walked along with a spring in their step after leaving Intermediate Day #1 at Iacon. They were all going to go back to work and finish up the shift for the orn both here and on Cybertron.
"Where's the cows?" Ratchet asked as they walked toward the Metro nearby. They could have taken the one below the school, a system that prevailed under each of the colonial schools to facilitate travel by children, unaccompanied or otherwise. But they decided to see the sun and maybe hit the fudge store nearby, Candy Encounters.
Because Ironhide.
"Delphi has them in his office corral. I dropped them off for him before we assembled," Hardie said as they slowed in front of the candy store.
Ironhide walked to the window and looked inside at the long counter filled with all manner of fudge, fancy candy and cakes.
Raptor and Hardie grinned at him, then Ratchet.
Raptor winked. "What can old Appa get for you today, little mech?" he asked Ironhide.
Ironhide grinned at him. "Everything?"
They laughed, entered, filled up, then wandered to the metro for the ride to The City. It would be a very fudgy thing all around.
=0=School daze
The rest of the day was a blur as the kids floated through it. As it came time to leave, however, the full impact of the process they started began to assert itself. It was a very somber number of kids who walked to their train car under Intermediate Day to go home.
=0=Here and there
"So it came out well. I hope that the genitors and other family rise to the occasion. Hopefully, they'll blame us and not give the kids a hard time," Hardie said as he sat in Delphi's office in his district on Cybertron, a place he needed to be before going to Iacon and The Citadel. Before he left he would do so with three cows. He was heading to the Villages and the kids loved the cows. The cows loved the kids.
Win-win.
=0=Sil's house
She entered the door, then peeped nervously around. A voice nearby greeted her.
"Sil. How was your orn?"
She looked at her Appas and Ammas, all of them sitting around the living room of her house. She stared at them, then shifted on her peds nervously. "Uh, I was … I was okay."
"Good," Buros said as he grinned at her. He patted the chair. "Come sit with me and tell me things. Tell all of us, then explain how the Night Watch horse patrols work. Commander Springer wants us to go tonight with your ada and atar to see what its like. I'm going to write a great story for the paper. Your genitors are going to see what its like to live in exciting times."
She stared at them, then dropped her book bag. She ran forward and grabbed her Appa. She then broke into tears.
=0=Later that evening
They walked in with all the hoodlums following. They were liberated from their ammas and appas to go to the barn and tie on the feed bag. It was a raucous number of little kids making conversation as they hung up their stuff, then turned to the adults.
"Ada, I got to make cookies again today," Hero said. "I saved one for Halo." She pulled one from her little bag. It was *METICULOUSLY* iced and had Halo's glyph on it.
"That's amazing, infant," Ratchet said taking it as Halo walked to Hero to get her cookie. "Later, imp. You have to each dinner first."
Halo frowned, then stared up at Ratchet. "ADA! MINE! LOU DOIN'? MY THING!"
"Oh frag." Ratchet chuckled. "You may not look like someone I know but you sound like him." He leaned down into her face. "No."
Halo leaned back, then smiled a sickly smile. She looked at Hero who was conflicted between kicking Ratchet in the shin and doing The Right Thing. "It's okay, Halo. You can have it after dinner. Okay?"
Halo stared at her, then Ratchet, then her. "Okay. Ada bad me. Ada bad."
Orion who was watching with Praxus and Prowler nodded. "Ada bad she. Ada not good you. I good you?"
Halo turned to him, then nodded. She pointed a tiny fat digit at Ratchet. "Ada not good me, O. Ada bad me. I say bad."
"You cried?" Orion asked sympathetically.
She nodded, then frowned at Ratchet. "I cwy."
Orion being a co-dependent little fixer looked upward at Ratchet. "Ada. Ha-Ho cried. Lou not good her. You not good me, Orion. I, Orion not good you."
Ratchet leaned down to the two of them whereupon both stepped back. "So?"
Orion stared at him, then Halo. He smiled a sickly smile. "Ada bad me. Ada bad Ha-Ho. Good you, me," he said to her as he laboriously took her servo into his. "Come me, you. We go to shes. Shes telled us doin'."
Orion then started down the hallway to the big kid's lounge where the titans were working on getting things put away.
Ratchet watched them go, then glanced at Hero who looked clueless about what had just transpired. "Those two are meant for each other."
Hero looked up at Ratchet. "What happened?"
Ratchet laughed loudly.
=0=Sil's
She sat on her appa's lap contented in his embrace. The others chatted quietly, none of them too worried about things since they'd resolved themselves and included the elders of the other families that they knew as well. They were going to slagging pull rank.
=0=Other places
"So I want you to know that Pulley has our blessing." -Pulley's great grand amma. The other elders nodded. Firmly.
"So I want you to know that Coros has our blessing." -Corros's amma and appa as the other elders nodded. Firmly.
"So I want you to know that Elkin has our blessing." -Elkin's amma, appa and ada who didn't mind him doing things this protected if it kept his grades up and his attitude in line. Everyone else nodded firmly as well.
"So I want you to know that Mico has our blessing." -Mico's entire cadre of elders. Nodding firmly.
"So I want you to know that Sio/Temple/Jessine/Flare/Hall-See/Simmer/Faun/Capstone and Dell has/have our blessing(s)." -at various homes minus one kid's family who was at dinner out: their amma and appa, aunts, uncles, friends of the family and for Sio since it happened in a restaurant to celebrate his brave deed an entire table of firemen and soldiers having dinner before shift
No one's grannies and grandpas wanted to see their little mechs and femmes cry.
No one.
They had SPOKEN.
=0=Getting ready to ride out to the fun and games
Drift grinned at Springer. "Tonight? You had some of them come tonight? When the rejection, humiliation and pain is still dripping energon?"
"It won't be great whenever it happens. Get the worst group over and whittle down the list. Maybe this might be fun and educational?" Springer said in a clear case of lucid dreaming.
Without the flying.
And the conjuring.
Among other things.
Down the stable they saw a number of individuals walking toward them, most of them with cankered affects to their auras. Few of them had ever been hammered the way Hardie had clearly done along with Micro and Raptor. They were here not because most of them had an interest but because they had no other choice.
As a consequence, there were nice easygoing horses chosen and the entire group would ride with Springer and his posse. No sense letting everyone else in on the 'fun'. They walked up and halted together.
Buros grinned. "Where's mine? I always thought I might take lessons. This might be fun."
His son and son-in-law stared at him stonily but they didn't say a word as the mechs walked horses to them and told them how to climb up. It would take a moment but shortly, Sil, Jessine, Elkin and Pulley's families were on their way to ride on the wild side of life.
It would be a long slow line clopping out of the stables to ride toward Terra along the highway. Nearly everyone of the grand genitors would have a great time. Nearly none of the genitors would venture an opinion about it but for one, Elkin's ada. He would find it 'refreshingly exciting'.
Elkin's ada had always been a sport.
=0=After 'eats'
"Those were good eats, Atar," Hero said with a smile as they slid down out of their chairs following dinner.
"They're the best kind of eats," Ironhide agreed as he helped Ratchet gather up the dinner ware.
Cookies were dispensed to all including one from Hero to Halo so they all danced off to Hero's room to nosh and play.
Fireball watched them go with a grin. "Orion tried to get us to get the cookie for Halo, Ada."
"I know. Little mech is going to have a prison record some fine orn because he's such a mark," Ratchet said with a dazzling smile. "He has much to live up to."
Huge laughter greeted that remark as everyone bused up the place, then walked to their lounge with Sunspot, Spot, Robby and Cousin in the train.
Walking to their chairs, Ratchet and Ironhide flopped.
Ratchet grinned. "Springer has some of them on horseback patrol tonight. I wish I could be there."
"Don't worry, Old Mech. Something tells me you probably will be," Ironhide said as he turned on the monitor to the news.
"And that's the weather. Sports is coming up after the Community Bulletin Board delivers the colonial news, road closures and the lunch menu for district schools. We'll be right back," Lim-Lee said as the screen switched.
It would be fun time in the old house tonight. There were two rodeos on the Western channel, one right after the other.
Nirvana would be achieved.
=0=The Posse
They waited on their horses as the paddy wagon collected the 'glee club', a group of sentimental youngling mini-con mechs who liked to get loaded, find a highway island to stand on and serenade passing cars. They were usually rounded up, then hauled off to magistrate's court. It was likely that an intervention would be staged given their frequency.
Springer mounted up, then grinned at the newcomers. "Just a choir looking for an audience."
"Do they do this often, Commander?" Nugget asked with delight. He was already composing his story.
"Too often. Mini-cons are that side of awesome. I don't know what we'd do without them," Springer replied.
"Less policing I would imagine," Elkin's father, Bullet said.
"Maybe, maybe not," Springer said calmly. He listened a second, then glanced at the group. "We have a fight at the club in Gambian, the one near The Sports Center. Let's go."
The newbies looked at them with varying emotions from surprise, fear and delight. Then they began to follow, riding faster than they planned to as everyone booked it to Gambian.
=0=There
"ADA! NOT ME DOIN'!"
"YES! YOU DOIN'!"
"Ada bad me. Ada not good me. Shes not doin'. PLAYIN'!"
Ratchet stared at the group led by Loudmouth and counted his blessings that none of them knew about caste court.
"BED TIME!" Ratchet said as he grabbed a handful of infants and walked out to the hallway where he cached them with Ironhide and went in for more. It would be a raucous time getting them back to their berths in Sunspot's room after a clean up but a lot more fun in the long run given that they stay overs were back home with their families.
=0=Face Time Autobot City style
"They're riding with the Watch patrols," Sio said with a sigh-o. "I wish I was there."
"We get to go next weekend," Jessine said as she petted her cat on her berth in her house.
More joined the chat.
"How is it at your place?" Elkin asked.
"Good. Ammas and Appas have spoken. No one can argue. I thought it would be weird but it isn't," Mico said.
The others nodded.
"My genitors are mad but not at me," Jessine said as the others nodded. "They're mad at Commander Springer and Drift." She laughed. "Poor Commander Springer and Drift."
=0=Poor Commander Springer and Drift
A chair flew out a window and bounced on the street. A group of mounted individuals were waiting down the way, watching with astonishment and loathing as Commander Drift flew through the window after the chair.
Right behind them came Poor Commander Springer.
=0=TBC 7-1-19
Notes to come tomorrow. :D:D:D I had to spend more time than usual trying to help my chihuahua find his 'baby', a tiny yellow chicken with buck teeth. :D:D