The Diego Diaries: Game Day 6
-0-On the pitch
That is, until he didn't.
Sunstreaker who was near the mid line of the field streamed in like a guided missile jumping bots and swerving through the mob on his skates like nobody's business. They felt a breeze pass as the tall yellow streak flashed by but it was too late. There was a toss back and forth between two bots and the ball went through the hoop.
The place went ape.
Sideswipe leaped, his long arm up to deflect the ball but it was going too fast and swished in. Or it would if there was a net. Which there wasn't. So it didn't. Swish that is.
*cough*
Anyhoo, it went inside.
The crowd rose on their peds as one giant organism raising the roof as they did. Although there wasn't a roof. It was an open sky arena. A roof would have been a stretch given the amount of space that the arena covered …
*SLAP!*
Okay. Where were we? Sideswipe fucked up.
The crowd cheered, the cameras lingering lovingly upon Starscream who jumped up and down hollering like a Decepticon. Which he was. Once. But now he's – okay, okay. Don't get your panties in a twist...
Where were we? Everything was tidings of great joy. Which is in keeping with the season if you think about it.
PAUSE. STAND BY. TEST PATTERN PLAYS ON THE SCREEN OF YOUR COMPUTERS. SCREEN COMES BACK. A NEW VOICE CONTINUES.
"We are sorry for that broadcast interruption. Now where were we? Oh, yeah. Sideswipe fucked up."
He lay on the ground momentarily inconsolable, his body as limp as a dishrag. He looked up at his teammates who looked down at him with varying expressions, their affect down the crapper too. Sunstreaker held out his servo and pulled Sideswipe up. "Shake it off. They're tied. They can't get one more score or we're toast."
Everyone nodded and they took their places. The lines came together and the ball was tossed to Kaon. They took it and ran it back missing the hoop by mili-centi-psychosyllabic-infintessimal-quintillagrams.
It was that close.
Sunstreaker fell back cursing under his breath and the group gathered in a huddle. They stared at each other, the twins kneeling as they pondered their strategy. Their coach who stood on the sideline looked at them with daggers. "That fragger over there is going to skin us alive. We need to put the game plan aside because it isn't working and do something else," Sunstreaker said.
"Like what?" Hugo-not asked.
"We run over them. Don't make a foul. But play hard. If we keep the ground game on our side, they will make a mistake," Sunstreaker said.
"You know, Sunstreaker, you almost sound sane," Topper said with a grin.
"Don't tell anyone," Sideswipe said. "Family secret."
They broke the huddle.
HUT! SLAG IT!
Walking back, they brought the hurt. They brought it to the other team who had their huddle too just before.
The Vos huddle...
"Well, that is nice. We tied the fraggers. They're going to come off the rails."
"Then we kick them back hard."
"Play like you could feel Ripper ripping ya."
"He will if we mess this up."
"Then don't mess it up. Kick them back to Cybertron."
"HHHHUUUUTTTTTTTT! YOU FRAGGERS!"
They came together like low flying planes on a strafing run, colliding with the intensity of small planetary fragments seeking to make an aggregate world. The sound was astounding, the jarring impact felt in the stands. The fans in a frenzy were on their peds stomping and screaming, a nearly lethal mixture of schadenfreude for some and homicidal get even-ism for others.
They punched and pushed, slapped and rammed, each side trying to either get/keep the ball or defend/offend with it. They moved like a big colorful congealed mass down toward Vos, then they pushed back toward Kaon. Sideswipe who was standing in front of the Kaon goal with a disgusted look on his face waited as the behemoths battled it out. The ball went out of bounds and Kaon got to put it back in.
The wing who had the ball on the sideline was immediately confronted with towers of Vos mechs, all of them grasping with their servos as the idea of a piece of just about anything at that moment seemed like justice. He moved in his small amount of legal space looking for an open teammate and didn't find one. So he did the next best thing and threw it hard into the face of a mech on the top of a relatively unstable tower, watching as they fell into a pile up. The ball itself flew off at an angle and was captured by Kaon who turned and began to run.
That mech was slammed into by a Vos defensive back in a flying tackle. He flew in a very pretty arc onto the Vos bench breaking it into many pieces. He rolled and landed on his peds, the ball still in his servos. Facing the entire bench of benchless Vos players, he grinned. "SLAG THAT, FRAGGERS!"
One did. He flew backward from the punch into a heap, ball still in servos.
The arena nearly rioted.
Springer and the Night/Day Watch as well as other security walked down the steps giving the restless natives the stink optic. Most of them settled down but for three Kaon youngling sub-adults who got the bums rush out of the stadium for drunken disorderly and all around slagging off the officers.
Drift who was standing nearby glanced at their genitors. "Do you want to go with them?" he asked with a slight smirk.
The small group of genitors which included a couple of elders looked at him and shook their helms. "Are you out of your processor? This is a good game."
That would carry him for a while as he turned and walked down the steps to bring the aura of peace or the reality of energon cuffs to the seething masses.
-0-In the all knowing optic
"Wow, the crowd is really getting into the game, Jazz. The Watch force is out in droves," Blaster said, the scene shifting to a bunch of unruly sub adult mechs giving slag and being carted off by security. "Little slaggers don't know when to shut up sometimes."
"Speaking from experience?" Jazz asked glancing at his partner with a chuckle.
"Of course," Blaster said with a nod.
"I want details," Revet said glancing over his shoulder from the corner where he sat rocking 'Vette to recharge.
"Oh oh," Jazz said with a chuckle. "Meanwhile back to the game," he began and they chatted up the plays, the players and the many differences between Cybertronian and Terran football. The biggest one? Humans would become tapioca if they played here. Even with the micro-mini-mini-con teams. Even especially with kindly sparks like Spinner and Kip. They showed the images of the two little goalies standing ready with their little servos gripped firmly together.
-0-Elsewhere
"AWWWWWWWWW!" -Asia
"AWWWWWWWWW!" -North America
"AWWWWWWWWW!" -South America
"AWWWWWWWWW!" -Africa
"AWWWWWWWWW!" -Europe
"AWWWWWWWWW!" -Australia
"Ork! Ork! Ork!" -three seals and a penguin on an ice flow in Antarctica
-0-On the field
Kaon took the ball to a penalty corner. Sunstreaker had it. It was his job to avenge the dented chin of his teammate who was arguing intensely with Goldwing who could have cared less. "You are not going back in, you slagger."
"Oh yeah!?"
"Yeah. How many digits?" he said holding up four.
"I don't care how many." Pause. "Three."
"I rest my case." Goldwing turned and walked away leaving the poor unsteady Kaon player to find his way back to his own bench from hostile territory.
The sound of the stadium shifted and it became very quiet. Sunstreaker feeling the pressure aimed as if his spark depended upon it which if this had really been a game in Kaon, it would have. It went up. It went through. The place went nuts.
Sideswipe who had changed with Hugo stood in the area outside the zone. He grinned. One more and they would be two over. Sunstreaker shot, the wayward Kaon mech stepped into the path and got his bell rung again.
The place went nuts.
The refs gathered to confer, Goldwing came out with a stretcher and a grin, Sunstreaker stood cursing under his breath as the coaches on both sides walked out to the refs. That dumb move didn't last long as a fight broke out and they both were dragged off by Autobots serving as security. They were tossed from the game.
The refs eyeballed everyone else with nuclear optics, then called the free throw over. Sunstreaker in his rage was intercepted by Sideswipe and they all went into a huddle, both sides.
Vos huddle-
"At least Ripper is in the slammer. We're on our own."
"Fragger. Now we can do whatever the frag we want."
"Let's do it."
HHHHUUUUUUTTTTTT!
Kaon huddle-
"Those fraggers."
"We'll beat them, Sunny."
"Not them. The refs. I had one more throw."
"Let's score then and put this inquest away. Coach is in the brig. Let's do this for him."
Everyone looked at Topper. He shrugged. "I saw a movie once."
They all nodded and the huddle broke.
"SLAGGING, FRAGGING, HUT! YOU SLAGGERS!"
The ball was tossed. The teams collided. It was on.
-0-Ratchet
He stood with Sunspot beside him standing on the bench seating. At times, he covered Sunny's optics. Grinning, he watched the irritation in the aura of the twins. Bring the hurt, boys, he thought. All was good.
-0-Prime
He stood with Prowl holding Spirit who was discussing odd points of the game with his atar. "Do they get to punch each other in the face, Atar? We don't."
"Not really, son."
"Do they get to stand on each other like that, Atar? We don't."
"Not really, son." (grin)
"Will Kaon win, Atar?"
"I don't know, son." (Glances at a tense Prowl whose optics were fused onto the action. Grins)
-0-Orion
He sat on Blackjack's arm and watched transfixed.
"GO, ME! GO FLY, LELLO! GO FLY, WIPE!"
He would call out from time to time as he watched the long distance train wreck unfold before him. It was awesome. Everyone was having a good time watching and so was he. Looking down, he saw Praxus looking at something on the ground. "PAX!"
The little bot looked up at him and smiled. "O!"
"COME ME!" Orion said smiling down at his brother.
Praxus grinned but shook his helm. He pointed at the ground. It was more fun playing with the garbage of someone else's dropped cookie. Picking it up, it nearly reached his mouth before Alor in a spectacular demonstration of optics behind his helm looked down and pounced.
-0-On the field
They lined up and glared at each other. Then they came together and when the ball went out, a Vos player was carted off on a stretcher. Vos got the throw and it was just them and Hugo. He set, he shot, it went in even as Hugo reached for it futilely.
Tossing the ball back to the fouled player, eating a lot of shit from Kaon for allowing him two shots when they only got one, the player set, shot and …
...missed.
The roar of the crowd was alive.
That is when the final siren sounded.
Kaon 7
Vos 7
It was a tie.
-0-In the stands
"That will teach them to mess with us," Starscream said with cold satisfaction. "Fraggers. I think I need to send a gift to the slagger who staggered out onto the field during that hellion's free throw."
"I think you do," Thundercracker said as they slowly began to gather up and turn to leave. "It would be a nice gesture."
"I think so too. That slagger got us into the playoffs."
It would be a happy crowd of blue and white fans that inched their way out of the stadium that orn.
-0-On the other side of the arena
They stood and waited as the humans turned to leave. They ran on a parallel track outside of the steps the rest would take to exit. They were going to manage to get out before the crowd got too thick on the ground. Alor watched them go and then kissed Orion. "You are a caution, sparkling." He turned and glanced at Ironhide. "Cafe Praxus?"
"Actually, we are going to a new restaurant in the new town site," Ironhide said glancing at Ratchet who nodded. "We have reservations at a restaurant on top of a tower."
"Sounds nice," Alor said as they slowly moseyed along.
"We're just trying it out for this game. Some rituals are to be kept," Ratchet said with a glance at Prowl, a closet traditionalist on some things.
"Does this one belong to Rampage too, Ratchet?" Tie Down asked as he moved behind Ravel holding Praxus.
"One of his students," Ratchet said as they reached the steps and began to descend. "Optimus is going to show the flag and give support. They planned to open for this game and they have."
They continued downward heading for the gates, all them intending to wait for the twins outside the lobby entrance to the Polyhex Tower where they lived. It would take a while to get there.
=0=TBC
2013 (1) Hugs to all this new year. I will be doing replies to your kind notes. To all without an addie or who signs in as Guests, HUGS and such for your sweetness. :D