Speedwriting Prompts 9
Author's Notes: Well, this was a bit later than I'd hoped, but that happens. I had an extremely busy week; at least the concert went well! My choir received glowing praise.
Alright, to start the interesting stuff off, thank you to HikariFighter for answering a question of mine.
Next, thank you to Exactlywhat and Manias 3.0 for betaing.
Enjoy!
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Disclaimer: I do not own Transformers
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Title: Good Business
Continuity: Animated
Prompt1 - The good man is the friend of all living things. - Mahatma Gandhi
Swindle smiled and chatted with his latest customer. The poor mech was pouring his story into Swindle's sympathetic audios, grateful for someone actually listening to his troubles. Blessed with poise, good sense, and good business sense, Swindle had realized early on in his career that being friendly earned him the most customers. Case in point: the moron telling Swindle all of his immediate weaknesses before negotiating the sale.
How does that Terran saying go again? "The good man is the friend of all living things?" Swindle shrugged to himself. Oh, well. While it's not always nice for them, being every man's friend is good for me, and that's all that matters.
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Title: Cruel and Unusual
Continuity: G1
Prompt 2 - Scenario: a character develops a superpower
"So anyway, I really didn't ask for this. I mean, I'm not the best person for any superpower, and this seem to do mo-" Trip. Clang! "Oops! Sorry about that, Mirage. I didn't mean to nose-dive into your lap. As I was saying, this particular one seems to do more harm than good. Seriously, since I've gotten it, the only good thing was inadvertently shooting and then crushing Laserbeak. I mean, I'm glad I didn't kill her; I don't think-" Thunderous Crash! "…Sideswipe, did I just ruin your prank? Well, I'm sorry that you spent a month preparing it. I didn't mean to set it off. But it's probably a good thing that it didn't hit Prowl; I mean, it's not nice to always focus on him, and you should probably leave before Sunstreaker stops twitching, gets up, and kills you. Okay, now that they're running, where was I?" Sploosh! "Oh my goodness, I am so sorry! I didn't notice you, and I guess I got a little overzealous while I was holding my energon cube, and when it splashed all over you, it didn't douse anything important, right? I'm so sorry!"
Totally covered in fallen energon, Cliffjumper groaned as he tried to ignore the endless babbling and apologies. Who in all of the nine realms had thought it a lovely idea to give Bluestreak the uncontrollable Power of Luck?
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Title: Say Hello!
Continuity: G1
Prompt 3 - Challenge: pick two characters and a movie. Your characters were watching that movie, but something went wrong and now they're stuck inside the movie. What happens?
An accident had occurred. Although no one was entirely certain how, Perceptor had most likely caused it.
His experiment had zapped the leaders of both the Aerialbots and the Dinobots into the program they had been watching with presumably morbid fascination. Unfortunately, according to Fireflight and Swoop, it had not been morbid fascination; on the contrary, they had been amused and entirely entertained.
Well, Optimus thought to himself wryly. Since they are technically two standard years old, I supposed they are in the right age group.
That realization did not make it any easier to watch Silverbolt and Grimlock, holding hands, dance around in a circle with queer, colourful, rotund beings with odd protrusions sticking out of their heads.
As the program's refrain started yet again, someone screamed, "Perceptor! Get them back now!"
Cheerfully ignoring the desperate mech, the Teletubbies (and temporarily rogue Autobots) sang, "Teletubbies. Teletubbies! Say. Heh~ Loh!"
"Eh-Oh!"
Title: Unusual, but Not Cruel
Continuity: G1
Prompt 4 - Setting: An uncomfortable place at dawn
Sucking in an invent, Ratchet sighed. In all of his long years of life and eons of experience, he could honestly say that this was one of the most awkward situations he had ever been in. He truly could not believe that this had happened to him. With another sigh, he thought back to how this had come to be.
The day before had started out simple enough: wake up, get energon, get pranked by Twins, call Prowl, go to Medbay, be called out for a Decepticon attack, and fly to Decepticon attack. This time, they had attacked an oil rig near Louisiana, and much to everyone's surprise, energon was not all that they were scheming for.
As soon as Ratchet had transformed and set up a spot for casualties, Skywarp had vopped in, snatched the startled medic, and vopped out.
After the seeker had deposited his prize on the ground, Ratchet had learned exactly why he had been kidnapped: Starscream needed help. Apparently, the Air Commander had been hit on the head one too many times, and he now had minor CPU damage. As far as the Decepticons could tell, said damage only affected one area, and after a quick examination, Ratchet quickly determined the location, severity (mild), and duration of repairs (once he got what he needed, not long). To the medic's surprise, his diagnostic was greeted with open relief, and a plethora of mechs volunteered to visit Cybertron and obtain for Ratchet everything that he needed and a bit besides.
Sadly for the medic, he quickly realized why the self-serving, battle-hardened soldiers helped him so readily.
Hence the reason why he was lying on the observation deck at dawn, watching the sunrise with a snuggly Starscream latched onto him. Sighing, Ratchet finally gave into temptation and stroked the now congenial, physically-affectionate mech's wings. Disturbing circumstances aside, at least the Autobot medic had finally been able to learn more about Seeker anatomy.
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Title: Goodbye
Continuity: G1(?)
Prompt 5 – Death
Death.
Such a fascinating concept. Literally hundreds of ways to reach the state, but all ended in the same fashion: a grey corpse and dark optics. And often, he mused, a grieving loved one.
Jazz swirled his way through the wreckage and reached his near-catatonic bonded. Silently, invisibly reaching over, the deceased pressed a final kiss to familiar dermas before whispering, "Ah love ya, Prowler. Live well for meh."
Jazz vanished, and Prowl both shrank in on himself and opened his eyes to continue living.
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Title: Quality
Continuity: Bayverse/Movieverse
Prompt 6 - High-Grade
If he could have in this form, Frenzy would have rolled his optics. Hiding out in an electronics store had been a great idea; it still was, actually. Unfortunately, he had not counted on having to listen to the irritating, smarmy, downright underhanded salesman for hours.
And here the moron was again, leading some poor couple to a genuinely lousy stereo across the aisle. "…This is one of our best options. It is excellent quality, and it'll last for years! Additionally…"
The radio twitched. That's it. Frag orders; he's had enough!
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To the couple's obvious shock, a smaller radio sprang from a shelf behind the salesman and split apart into a million pieces. A moment later, the pieces coalesced into a small, slender, visibly annoyed robot with bright blue eyes. Flipping a middle finger at the paling salesman, it hissed in a raspy voice, "He tells you only a load of slag! If you really want something reliable, appropriate this one." After tapping the aforementioned stereo, the being glared at the nearly-fainting salesman. "Speak the truth, human!"
As the man slumped to the ground in fright, the robot stalked towards and out the door, grumbling about idiot fleshlings and intolerance all the way.
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Author's Notes 2: Here are the (surprisingly short) details about this week:
#1: I have not watched TFA, and Swindle is not my favorite character. At all. (Actually, I haven't watched him in any continuity) Nevertheless, I hope I did him "justice."
#2: Norse mythology reference! Anyway, I asked my dad about powers that can cause clumsiness. Answer: being able to give other people bad luck. See Felicia Hardy for details, but I, naturally, went with the humour version instead of serious.
#3: Goodness, I'm cruel. ::Cackles gleefully:: I read this to my mother; while not a transformers fan, she described this short as "sick." I'm so proud of myself! Anyway, my sister apparently still loves Teletubbies. For the record, I realized that it was a Nineties' show and not exactly a movie; I don't care. It's funny.
#6: No, the radio salesman was not a nod to "Ruthless People," although it can be interpreted that way. Frenzy is probably OOC; the real one would have killed the salesman. And then the witnesses for good measure.