The Diego Diaries: Sun Dance (dd7 164)
=0=The following orn
It was time to go so the team who were sitting in the man cave strategizing gathered to make their way to the colonial city of Stanix and the giant stadium there. The other six stadiums on world, some of them new additions to the new city habitation sites would host teams but none of them would be Kaon. They would be playing a game in Polyhex, a newly named city in the Crater District 3 later on this weekend.
As for football on Cybertron, Polyhex, the city along with Iacon and Praxus had their stadiums rebuilt to host public gatherings and football games. They would be filled to the maximum and the games would be broadcast to Mars and around Cybertron as the two leagues, Martian and Cybertronian began their seasons.
Team Prime arrived at the stadium, ran the gauntlet of fans who were arriving there, then entered their own locker room to gather and continue to get ready to play ball. The team consisted of most of the players from basketball but there were others as well carefully recruited by Prime who secretly played fantasy football with Morshower and the N.E.S.T. strikers on world.
The wings who would run the bigger bots to death were Elita, Arcee, Jetta and Chromia. They would be fed the ball to deliver the goods. The muscle for the offense would be Ironhide, Raptor, Blackjack, Delphi, Prime as center, Twilight who was recruited from the Bricklayer's Union and Magnus as goalie. Shim who was the twinish looking brother of Twilight would be a defensive player both for the defensive line and for Magnus while the others including Hardie would be linemen for the offense. A big mech named Fantum would be the backup goalie and the backup center for both offense and defense.
Their team would be a hammer on the helm of the opposition given the strategic recruiting that Prime had made and their long period of practice behind everyone's back out in the boonies when their team's creation was announced. They had less time lately but they had put in the effort all along when possible and it would be their ace in the hole.
Big mechs like Maelstrom and Shim would be standout members of the defense, all of whom were guards at the prison when they weren't cavorting at sport. Optimus left nothing to chance.
Prime and Prowl didn't ruin two families when they bonded.
They sat together in the locker room as Prime quietly filled them in on the lay of the land. He had been told by someone who knew someone that Polyhex was gunning for them early on so it would be a fist fight to the bitter end. It was believed that laying Prime out before it got out of hand was a good idea.
It was good to know.
=0=Primal Box
They gathered together, all of them at last but Ratchet. It was a fretful group that wondered how he was doing and if he could take a moment to come to the game. It wasn't looking like it. The kids were wrangled by the family and everyone was tense, though no one was as uptight as Prowl. The crowd waited in anticipation for the first football game with an actual Prime as a contestant. It was thrillingly exciting in the Stanix Stadium.
=0=MCA Pre-Game Show with Earth
"I'm Mandy Sikes from Minnesota, Jazz. What's the feeling on world about Prime playing football now? Its almost a mystification for the people of Earth to see a head of state doing something like this," a man's voice with a northeastern accent said over the line from Earth.
"Well, Prime likes sports. Anyone can play here. We don't stand on ceremony. I think its a point of pride for us that we have a leader that's such a sport. We don't have a problem with living our lives the way we want. Prime loved basketball and his team is the first world champion in that sport. I think given his competitive spirit that he's going for the Primus Cup as well," Jazz replied.
"This is Jeroen van der Kruk of The Netherlands, Jazz. What about the violence? What will the other teams do about the violence that is typical with this sport? And how will Prime handle it as a player and head of state as well?"
"He's going to hand some of it back, I think," Jazz said with a smile. "He's no shrinking violet, Our Optimus. He's a strategic sportsman and can take a lot of punishment. If you noticed during basketball, he never started a fight. He had to be pushed into it but when he was he gave as good as he got."
It would go on for a while.
=0=There
"AMMA!"
"What, imp?" Ravel said to Orion who was sitting on Tie's arm.
"Where Ada?" he asked as he glanced around.
"Ada is working," Ravel said gently. "He's going to try and come but there are mechs and femmes who need his help."
"Ada hepping?" Orion asked with surprise. "Ada goin' to shes? Ada doin' the doin'?"
Ravel grinned. "He sure is. Do you want a cookie?"
He would and so would everyone else.
=0=Locker room
A rap on the door was heard then a helm peeping in broke their quiet reverie. "Time to go, Lord Optimus," a youngster said. Then the door closed.
Prime stood then glanced around. "I hope we have fun."
Chromia stood then slammed her fists together. "You and me both," she said as the room erupted in laughter.
They lined up with Prime at the front. He had to step out during the anthems, then rejoin everyone in the tunnel until they walked out. The door was opened and they filed out in line, the Crater Terrans of Mars.
=0=Alor
He walked out with the band and his genitors to do the honors. The teams were in the tunnels and it was just about time to start. He sat and began to play. When they got to the part where Prime stepped out and he did, it brought the stadium to their peds. A roar of unholy delight swept the place as Prime stood a moment then walked back to the tunnel.
When things were finished, Alor walked past with his genitors, nodded to Prime with a grin, then walked to the stairs to disappear upward to the Primal Box with Trooper and Scout. It was then that Password walked out to start the season.
=0=Cybertron
The crowds were enormous both inside and outside of the three stadiums. A street party was going on around them as huge monitors would play the game for those who couldn't fit inside. Street food, good drinks and an unaccustomed sense of normalcy had taken over and though there were a lot of police around they wouldn't be needed for anything but the odd drunk and a disagreement about the game here and there. It would be celebration, celebration, celebration for everyone on Cybertron today.
=0=On the field
Password and the referees walked to the center of the field to the roar of the immense crowd. Then it got quiet. He had a microphone and began. "Welcome to the new season of play for the honor of the Primus Cup of Cybertron and Mars."
ROAR!
"We have two leagues now and for the first half of the season they will play only teams of their own league before crossing over to play those of the opposite league. Teams from Cybertron will come here to play and teams from Mars will go there."
ROAR!
"Today, we open the season here at Stanix Stadium in the Primal colony city of Stanix with the Polyhex Panthers and a new expansion team for the Martian League, the Crater Terrans!"
ROAR!
"The team captains have tossed for the ball and the Panthers have won. We're going to begin now and we hope everyone including the fans understand the need for a good fair game. LET'S PLAY BALL!"
ROAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRR!
Both teams took their turn to walk out, plant their flags, do their hakas, then gather to go to the field to play. The only thing missing was the nod from Prime. He would figure out how to take the team's salute even if he was playing himself but today, that was overlooked.
Prime watched the defense walk out and take their places. They had been drilling since the announcement of the new teams and he had faith in his guys. His team was the only one on Mars that had femme players. Two of the teams in the other league on Cybertron had femmes and he looked forward to playing them. He also looked forward to unleashing his powerhouse offense on the world. Right now, they had to stop Polyhex from scoring or steal the ball. Either way was good for him.
=0=Magnus
He stood at the goal line with Fantum and Twilight waiting for the ball to go their way. The three of them would be the brick wall that the Panthers would have to claw their way through and more than one mech in the stands was glad it wasn't them. The ball was passed from a ref to the center of Polyhex, then the waves of mechs slammed together. It was the clang heard around the world(s) and the game was on.
=0=Razorclaw
He sat in his favorite chair in his quarters watching the game on his big screen monitor. Their base was morphing into something more comfortable than the usual Decepticon base. It was the longest he had ever stayed anywhere before. Therefore, it had things he never had in bivouac … amenities.
Comforts.
A chair that was cozy and comfortable.
He grinned slightly. "You're a piece of work, Optimus Prime. I don't blame you for playing but for me, my bet is going to be on Polyhex."
Oddly enough, that was Razorclaw's adopted home town. There were a lot of punks there with money and he was never short of change back in the orn. No one ever said no to him.
Polyhex was his kind of town
=0=Ominous
Ominous and Pleon sat in a rec room with a lot of mechs to watch the games. It was football and everyone was ready to kick back, drink homemade hooch and eat reasonably well made food from the quality energon all around them while they watched footie. It was a perk of the locale and they watched Prime's colony on the 'leaked' videos that reached them this far out. It was amazing to them to see the luxury of Prime's colony and a spur to build up enough forces to take it away from him.
A mech could dream.
=0=Game
The ball was held in the scrum as both sides lumbered back and forth. By the time it was clear that Polyhex couldn't move it, they forced the team out of bounds. Polyhex's right wing had the ball and tried to find a path for it through the bots who were making a proverbial brick wall before him. When he passed the ball toward his own wing, a defensive wing for the Terrans intercepted it then lit a path to their goal.
The crowd roared, the mech ran and was tackled off the field at last. It was time for Prime and Company to come on board and see if they could take it all the way.
The crowd on several worlds and piratical enclaves watched with intensity.
=0=In the stands
The twins watched with an appraising optic. Now was the time they would see if Prime and his team were a real threat or not. They watched as Prime and his mechs and femmes jogged onto the field and took to the sideline. Jetta would throw it in.
=0=Down there
Jetta took the ball and almost before anyone could set to block him he threw it hard to Chromia. She ran forward as down the line of her trajectory Elita and Arcee followed. Chromia passed it laterally to Arcee who passed it to Elita, none of them throwing it forward which was against the rules. They stormed onward as Prime and the boys blocked and knocked down anyone who tried to follow.
Behind the three femmes who were homing into the goal came Hardie and Jetta who had caught up, They were running swift and fast to take out the goalie together. Raptor and Blackjack along with Delphi were heading for the defensive backs who were there and hammered them into the sidelines as the goalie set for the femmes.
Passing the ball to Chromia, Arcee and Elita entered the goalie's space, then Arcee leaped into the air. Catching the ball from Chromia, Arcee twisted, fed it through the hoop, then landed. All around them the forward lines of the teams caught up and the slamming and punching was amazing. In the middle of it with a grin on his face, Optimus Prime was showing his stuff.
=0=Far, far away
Ratchet stood on the side of the dig site watching as forensics went through their paces. This was a graveyard though it wasn't listed, The only bodies inside the 14 graves were those of the lower castes whose method of death was undetermined as of yet. He'd been informed by the nascent resistance here that a number of bots had rebelled against the system and had disappeared some time back.
It was clear to Ratchet as he watched that they had found out at last where they were.
=0=TBC 12-23-19 Sorry about last night. Its cold as hell here and I had to do a few things to keep the cold out. Drafty windows are the pit. :D:D:D:D:D