The Diego Diaries: Aftermath (dd7 126)
=0=Primal Residence
They sat around the vast living room eating catered food and sipping cold drinks. The game was over and the mechs were on their way after being interviewed, exclaimed over and almost carried to the Metro. It was a jolly train that wend its way to The City filled with players, fans and a few really drunk mini-cons who sang through the entire repertoire of every club song they could remember.
They could remember all of them.
Reaching Metro 1, they clambered off, hustled to the tower through the street parties that seemed to be everywhere and went straight upward with the twins and other relatives hot on their trail. A jolly ride concluded their journey as they walked into the apartment. Children and dogs, cows, a nervous bug and several cats competed for their attention and a good view of the cup that Prime held in his hands.
"OTIS! WHAT SHE!?" Orion asked.
Prime knelt. He held it out to the children. "This is the prize for the game today."
It took a moment for the kids to check it out then smile brilliantly.
"OTIS. Good you. You good she. I good you. I, Orion love you," Orion said with a big grin. He patted Prime's arm.
"I love you, too, Orion," Optimus said with a grin back. "Have you had dinner?"
"We do. I, Orion doed. Lou doed?" he asked the others who nodded. He smiled, then looked at Optimus. "Shes doed. All the shes. Good shes. I, Orion say good shes," he said as he patted some of them.
Optimus chuckled as he stood, then handed the cup to Prowl who held it with great delight. He walked to the mantle of the fireplace and set it in an empty spot among the pictures and nick knacks of their travels around the universe.
He turned to the rest. "That-looks-so-good-I-think-we-need-to-vote-to-keep-it-there-until-next-season. All-in-favor-say-aye," Prowl said swiftly. Before anyone could speak, he rubbed his servos together. "All right then, there it stays."
The mockery was HUGE for the winged wonder who then herded the kids away to play in the playroom down the corridor. He came back as everyone dished up dinner to take his chair beside Ratchet and continue his own.
"You're so needy, Prowler. Did you know that?" Ratchet asked.
"You're so delusion. Did you know that?" Prowl replied. "By the way, your pre-game sideshow was insane. I've asked for a Primal hold for you. You're welcome."
Prime who had just sat with a heaping plate and a beer glanced at Prowl. "Did you? I do not remember signing one."
"I did for you." Prowl grinned. "No one ever knows the difference."
"Well, that should tell you all you want to know," Ratchet said. "You're officially a wimp, Optimus."
Huge agreement greeted that as the twins walked by with food and beer. They sat down against the wall and began to eat.
"Need a hug?" Ratchet asked with a grin.
Sunstreaker frowned at him. "You're supposed to support us. How do you expect us to stay out of jail if you don't?"
"Don't ask me. You know my record," Ratchet said.
"What's the drill tomorrow, Prowl?" Alor asked as he sat down on the floor and attracted the attention of three cute little cows.
"We have to meet up about the spies. We have to decide whether to tell the humans if N.E.S.T. doesn't get all the tech they gathered in their raids to us directly. Can't trade without hostages," he said with a frown. "I can't believe we have to go over this."
"Send Magnus. He's the enforcer," Arcee said as she sat on a couch next to him as they ate.
"I'll go," Magnus said. "It's my duty."
"We may do that, Magnus," Optimus said as he sipped his beer. "Right now, we have to go over the situation and try to reconstruct what they have and what might still be there. Apparently, their science units are dispersed and compartmentalized. No one knows more than they need to know."
"Fragger," Sideswipe said. "They have no call to have this tech."
"No, they don't," Prowl said coldly. "We'll get it back if we have to go there and shake it out of them."
"Count me in," Ratchet said as he smiled at Prowl. "You and me haven't been in a human jail yet."
"There's always the first time," Magnus said dryly.
"There's nothing like the support of family in your joor of need," Ratchet replied.
Maelstrom snorted, then schooled his face to a placid expression. It was actually very cute.
"I have to make the rounds of the habitats tomorrow. We have a lot of backlog to do. I also want to see how Rocco and the kids are doing," Ratchet said.
"That was pretty stand up of him to take them on," Prowl said. "Three little kids, all loaners is a lot for a depraved marauder."
Snickers went around the room.
"I'm going there myself," Ironhide said. "I want to see what the scene is like. He might have a limit."
"I think its three," Sideswipe said.
The beat would go on.
=0=Party at the Family Tower
Food and drink were had as they celebrated the championship of the world in basketball. The entire group minus those on duty had gathered before the giant monitor screen, the 'Autobot i-pad' to watch the game together. It was the usual round of wild paced sport and bar fight. Some of them had been doing reaction videos for streaming services at NASA and Diego during the game, showing their own enjoyment but also that of everyone there.
"I'm going to miss basketball but football is coming up in eight days so there's that," Jonathan Lennox said as he sat between his wife and son eating dinner and drinking a good cold beer. "If there's no more interruptions then Prime and company will play the first game on Cybertron with Nova Cronum, the reigning champions."
"That's right," Lonnie Epps said as she lounged nearby. "I forgot. I wonder if the time's coming when we can see a game on Cybertron?"
"When they move it closer and it gets a sun again," Niall Graham said.
Everyone craned their necks to look at him.
He grinned. "That's the dream. They want to move Cybertron, its moons and the local group to a closer star so it won't roam."
"Can they do that?" someone asked nearby.
"Wheeljack said they do that a lot. They moved Caminus to a dwarf star before theirs exploded and they can move Cybertron, too. Its a matter of finding a good star, checking it out for life and if finding none moving gas giants in to clean up the debris field of the sun, take on wandering debris that may come in, then putting them in the right balanced orbits."
It was silent a moment. A few of them shifted in their seats as they pondered such a thing.
"That's … uh, its science fiction, right? Think about all the stuff that can go wrong," Sam Witwicky said.
"I don't want to," Judy Witwicky said. "The math skills of some of the bots scare me."
"You and me, too. I have enough trouble just balancing my checkbook," someone else said.
It would be a quiet meal for a few moments before the conversation picked up again.
=0=Earth 1
Angus Optimus ran past a table where a passel of grannies sat eating dessert and chatting together. Several other babies followed him, laughing and beating feet across the dining area of their big habitat. He was a first level at Sparkling Day #1 where most of the smallest members of the Prime-Ironhide menagerie attended.
He was a toddler and thus was considered a 'level 1-beginner' in his school.
Everyday a school bus arrived in the habitat entrance, three babies were put on it into the arms of mini-con aides who took them to school and got them inside, then they would come home the same way. On the bus were two other toddlers from Earth2 who were following the same routine. It was the way all of the kids went to school now on public and district transportation.
He was happy, liked to play with Orion and the other kids who were well versed on his fragility. He was doing well in his studies, could speak a bit of NeoCybex and was friendly with literally dozens of kids.
Now he was beating feet without an environmental suit on to put a layer between him and everyone he wanted to play with. He was expert with it, that was good. But it often was maddening, though it fit his form perfectly and the helmet nearly molded to his cute little head to be as unobtrusive to him as possible.
"Have they all eaten?" someone asked as they flocked past heading toward the other side of the lounge with huge laughter and joie de vivre.
"They have. I want them to wear themselves out before bed time," another said. "School tomorrow."
A granny nodded, then grinned. "I get to go with them to Sparkling Day. Visitation time after all."
Everyone agreed to that wondrous use of time. It would surprise a few people how many even without grandchildren there rode with the bus to sit in on the lessons and activities of the little kids. Neo and Laret had a lot of friends at Earth 1.
=0=There
They sat in their barracks eating the good food supplied during special orns such as holidays and game days. There was no real beer but the stuff they drank tasted like it. The only difference was they wouldn't be able to get loaded from it.
"It was good to see Kaon lose," AU Neo said with a glance at AU Kudon who lounged on the berth as they watched highlights of the game being played on a sports talk show here in The City.
"I never liked Kaon. Capital City is the only city for me," AU Kudon said. He glanced at AU Neo. "I heard that Praxus won a football championship once because Prowl stacked the team."
"That sounds about right," AU Neo said. "That calculator never did like to lose." She reached for another cookie, then took a bite. "They serve excellent food here even when nothing special is going on."
"They do," AU Kudon said as he put his peds up on the chair across from him. "It's good not to have the others around."
The only alternate universe prisoners at the special lock up who were allowed to live in the barracks rather than remain in stasis in the hospital security sector were the 'political-non violent' ones. Waldeen, Traachon and the others were in barracks together but she and Kudon were in a smaller one built for just a couple of prisoners.
"It's relieving not to have to put up with Ironhide and Springer," AU Neo said. "I don't know if Ironhide knows about Alor and Blackjack. I don't know if he would care. He did, after all, burn his grand genitors to death."
"A good move for him," AU Kudon said with a malicious sound to his voice. "Maybe we can enlighten him if he ever gets put back here."
AU Neo grinned slightly. "That sounds about right to me. I shall bookmark it in my diary."
The evening would pass quietly as they watched the life beyond the bars of their cage play out on their monitor screen, a life they wouldn't be living any time soon.
=0=Later that night
"Oh, Ironhide … you devil, you."
[Grin] "I am a devil aren't I."
"I won't disagree."
[Silence]
"That was a great game, Only One. It turned me on to see you fly into that wall."
[Grin] "That's because you're a crazy slagger. That bouncing costume is my favorite. You reminded me of that girl in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory who turned blue and blew up into a ball."
[Pause to review tape] "You're right. I never thought of her. I was too busy culling my photo gallery for images of Prowl that captured his essence."
[Laughter] "I think you succeeded."
"ADA!"
Two big mechs nearly jumped out of their exoskeletons with startled surprise. Two sets of optics glanced at the door where a tiny version of the big version sitting in the tub across from Ratchet stood.
"What are you doing up, Orion?" Ironhide asked as he set his beer on the floor beside the tub. He and Ratchet were soaking in it, each sitting at one end of it. "You're supposed to be in sleepy bed."
Orion walked up, looked into the bubble filled water, then smiled. "I, ORION LIKE THE SHES! I, ORION SWAMMED!"
Before either of them could stop him, he dived in head first. Behind him having stood in the door watching, Spot bounded up, then leaped in to save Orion. As he did that, Robby the Bruce walked up, stared into the 'trough', then clambered up to join them.
"What the frag!" -Ratchet
"OW! MY PED! Where's Orion?" -Ironhide digging through the bubbles.
"SPLASH! SPLASHITY SPLASH! LICK! LICKETY LICK!" -a big boi
"MOOOOOOOO!" -a cow
Or in other words, just another end to a beautiful orn in the Bosom of Love™
=0=TBC 11-5-19