The Diego Diaries: Cog (No Man) (dd7 107)
=0=There
Cog lay on the ground yelling loudly as the Imperialis brothers stood side-by-side adding their voices to the choir.
Prime stared at them, then Drift who was poised in front of Springer with a look of great rage on his normally bemused and deeply handsome face.
Prowl had moved over to sit on an overturned box in his disgust, which apparently was now so heavy he couldn't stand without support.
The 'Cons were laughing loudly.
Then one stepped a bit closer, the seemingly dim one. "Uh, Optimus Prime? Is it true that you have pro football?"
It would tickle Ratchet a long time how sudden the laughter stopped as everyone swiveled toward Prime with surprise.
He blinked at the turn of events, Our Optimus, himself. "We do," he said.
"Well, WHAT THE FRAG! When do we go and who do we kill?" the big mech aka Rocco said with gusto.
"YES!" -the boys
Springer laughed in spite of himself as he stood behind Drift who was poised to make canisters out of Cog.
Cog himself staggered up, then met Drift nose assembly to nose assembly. "That was low even for you, Deadlock," he hissed.
"Deadlock?" the dim youngster said with surprise. He glanced at Rocco. "Didn't you say you'd collect the bounty on him and give his helm to Megatron once?"
Rocco looked at the kid, then frowned deeply. He glanced at Prime. "You were saying pro football?"
"Well, I never," Prowl said with disgust as he stood up. He glared at all of them, his servos resting on his hips giving him the air of an old maid school teacher giving the hoodlums the stink optic.
"Never what?" -the boys
Prowl stared at them with The Look, something he was once again made aware had no effect on Decepticons. He considered that he'd have to try it on the tame ones they had back home. It was either that or he was losing his mojo.
Nah.
Prime stared at Prowl, then back to Rocco. He shrugged. "We have a lot of professional sports. There is basketball as well."
"What's basketball?" -the boys
"Oh, do tell them, Optimus. Or let me," Ratchet said with a dazzling smile.
"Who's the looker?" someone from the pack shouted.
Ironhide frowned. "Frag you. OLD MECH! GET BEHIND ME NOW!"
Ratchet laughed, then continued. "Basketball is a game that is played by the Most High on a rectangle court with a bunch of players beating each other's aft to put a ball through a hoop."
"You mean that its like football only inside?" -one of the boys
"Sorta." -Ratchet
"Frag. I want to play. Who do I kill?" -one of the boys
Huge laughter. -all of the boys there but Cog, Prowl, Joonie and Retch who was coming out of his beating.
Retch stood up then straightened. It sounded like fingernails on a chalkboard. Most of the boys and some of the Autobots sort of cringed, jumped around and/or stared at Retch with astonishment. Something very uncool was bent and/or broken inside his carcass.
Everyone turned to Ratchet.
He was still smiling a dazzling smile. He glanced around Ironhide who'd stepped in front of him. "Uh, slagger … stand still. Don't do that again or I'm going to have to use a broom and dustpan to get you out of here."
Retch glanced up at Ratchet from his bent over position. "Ow," he said, then fell flat on his face.
Hercy walked over to tap him with his ped, then glanced at Ratchet. "This one's done."
"Overdone if you ask me, which no one has," Jack said with a chuckle. "Hey, Ebio. Sun is here. Wanna dance?"
"I like dancing," another kid said with a big grin. "I like it fine."
Everyone looked at him, then Rocco nodded. "You do." He then looked at the two FUMING former leaders of their merry band. "So, slaggers … you were saying before they bombed the slag out of us?"
The two stared bullets at Rocco, then Ebio stepped a bit closer. "Sun, you fragger. Come and get me."
Sun who was smiling glanced at Prime who shrugged, then he stepped forward. "Okay."
Rocco gripped Cassio by the neck, then dragged him back as the group surrounded Sun and Ebio. Cog frog-hopped to one side clutching his cod piece, his laser optics focused on Springer who moved away with Drift to stand behind him with a look of loathing on his own handsome face.
Prime who felt like a spectator in his own life glanced at Prowl.
Prowl walked over to stand next to him. "I'm going to run the drum head."
"Who is going to be tried?" Optimus asked with a grin.
"All of them," Prowl said with a dark expression on his handsome face.
Prime took snaps of that look through his optics and stored them away. There wasn't an expression that Prowl could get that didn't warrant perusal later in the wash rack.
Behind a closed door.
"Bend him, Sun, like Beckham," Jack said. He grinned at Ironhide. "Good movie. I like soccer."
"You would," Ironhide said with a grin.
Everyone gave their full attention to the oversized Autobot and the tall powerful but less brutally obvious Ebio. They slowly circled each other.
"I bet the farm on Sun. Win, slagger, or I'll bend you like Beckham myself," Kup said. He grinned. He loved Sun and Jack. He also saw the movie himself.
He liked soccer, too.
Sun laughed as he waited for Ebio to make his usual move. He did. Sun caught his servo before it could land, then squeezed.
Hard.
Slagging hard.
Ebio, if he were a cartoon would have his tongue flapping in the wind from the pain that nearly short circuited his processor. He froze in place, stunned into immobility by the intensity of Sun's grip.
Cassio who was watching shook his helm. Everything for miles around was fragged. Now even so was Ebio in the most anti-climatic ending to a moment he'd ever witnessed.
Sun had a grip like a house falling on your foot.
From outer space.
Cassio could see the pain in his brother's optics, then he considered he deserved it, the slagger. Vendettas and grudge matches were totally unwise in his playbook. In short, EVERYTHING WAS FRAGGED!
"You give up?" Sun asked with a grin on his little pug face.
The one with the scars over both optics and a tattoo naming someone from the Golden Age that nearly landed his aft.
That one.
There was a funny story to that but only Hercy knew it. He'd come for his mentor and pulled him nearly blotto out of a tattoo parlor where an enterprising mech had dragged him to get a tattoo of undying love with his name in it etched into the side of Sun's left temple.
He still had it but instead of declaring undying love for a mech named Bare-o, it proclaimed undying love for beer-o.
Ebio would've said yes but his denta had clacked together nearly welding shut at the impact at the onset of the pain and he couldn't open his mouth. He had several counter measures in place when Sun released him but he put them aside to monitor his debris chute which wanted to let loose at any moment.
"I think he's trying to say something," Jack said as he walked closer to peer at Ebio. "What's that, Ebio old son?"
Ebio tamped down his pain receptors which was a blessing but it didn't do much for his servo, his feelings, his sense of frustration or his brother's rising fury which he directed straight at him.
Cassio could suck it.
"What do you think, Sun. Let him go?" Jack asked with a grin.
Sun who was holding him with his now legendary grip, the legend, grinned at his brother. "I don't know. I wanna be polite. If he asks, then yes."
Prime watched the show with amusement and relief. This was going to end with a laugh and not a lot of violence. This was one of his favorite missions he thought as he watched the two. Cassio and his brother were in the bag and he was now facing a Primal Hearing with Special Circumstances which would mesh nicely with the one for the Wheelus Faction and Karyll Wheelus himself.
Win-win.
"What are you going to do about this travesty?" Prowl asked as he found himself enjoying it more than was decent. He would die before he would ever say so, however.
"Well, it is in good hands," Prime said with a snicker.
Prowl grinned at that. "Nice one."
"I do try," Prime said.
"What do you say, Ebio. Give it up?" Sun asked.
A weak squeaking sound emitted from the big mech though it was hard to tell what he meant.
Sun glanced at Jack. "What did he say?"
The dim kid who was frowned at by Rocco was standing again arms lengths away from that mech. He spoke up. "He said, "eeEeeaaugh."
Everyone looked at the kid, then another older mech grinned. "That's close. I think he said, "ergleeooowww."
"That sounds closer," Rocco said. "You forgot the second remark … ooogggleoogggleoog."
Huge laughter greeted that, then Cassio lunged forward to grab a gun laying on the ground where the group had dropped their weapons.
The duocons grabbed him.
Then Rocco and Joon-O who'd given up with the bond each took an arm and leg from them. Cassio was suspended in the air between them.
Rocco grinned.
So did everyone else including Prime.
"How about we pull this in two and see who gets the biggest part of the wishbone."
"Wishbone? How do you know about them? We don't have them," Ratchet said with surprise, knowing this custom was part of the human's ritual when cannibalizing dead fowls.
"'I Love Lucy'," the dim kid said. "Some show where a crazy alien femme drives her bond, Ricky Ricardo crazy. They had a dinner with a wishbone they pulled off a dead carcass of something or other. It was gross," he said. Then he grinned just because.
"There must be a wormhole sending the signals this far. They should've petered out before getting here," Ratchet said.
Elita and Arcee who'd caught up with the group and were standing together admiring and critiquing the show glanced at each other. "That might explain how they have English in the databases at Broken Hole."
Everyone glanced at them, then turned back to Ebio.
"Say when, Prime," Rocco said with a grin.
"WHEN!"
Everyone glanced at Springer who was still behind a locked and loaded Drift. He grinned. "When?"
"PUT ME DOWN, SLAGGERS! WIMPS! COWARDS! YOU GAVE UP THIS FAST!? WHAT KIND OF MARAUDERS ARE YOU?" Cassio said.
None too wisely.
"I don't like what he said. He hurt my feelings," the dim kid said with a frown.
"Aw. You hurt the infant's feelings, Cassio. That wasn't nice," Rocco said as he stepped back a couple.
So did Joon-O.
Cassio howled. "PRIME!"
Prime who was watching transfixed jolted. "I would like him to stand trial in one piece."
"I can see that," Rocco said as he and Joon-O let go. "One trial is easier than two."
Everyone howled with laughter as Cassio landed on his behind. He glared at Prime. "TELL ME AGAIN HOW YOU'RE DIFFERENT FROM ME, PRIME!"
Prowl actually growled, then stepped forward. He picked up Cassio, pulled him close to his face, then shook him hard. It was like watching a picking machine shake a cherry tree so the fruit would fall off. He rattled, then Prowl dropped him. He fell on his aft again. Prowl leaned in. "There aren't enough vorns in the universe to illustrate the differences between you and him."
"Heh...eee."
Everyone froze, then glanced at Ebio. He looked faint and so was his plea.
Sun leaned closer. "You want me to let go?"
Ebio nodded faintly.
Sun smiled brilliantly. "Okay." Sun let go.
Ebio staggered backward, then fell flat on his back. He was out like a light as several pieces of his servo fell off his squashed hand. It was sort of nauseating.
Ratchet scanned Ebio, then grinned at Sun. "Thanks. That's two and a half joors of hand work there."
"I AIMS TO PLEASE!" Sun replied as the entire group howled.
=0=TBC 10-10-19 HBDJB. Heart you. 02-27-2021