The Diego Diaries: Shadow Box Interlude 2: Here and There (229/67) edited for boo boos :D
-0-Here
"Do you need help?"
"NO!"
-0-There
"Go over there and show your papers. We're going to inspect your ship. You have anything you want to tell us about before we do it?"
"Slag no," Elita replied gruffly, her battered visage and scars intimidating. "Frag you. We don't declare anything."
The Decepticon officer looked at her with a tiny bit of insecurity and a whole lot of loathing. "This will go easier if you cooperate."
"We don't have anything to declare," Chromia said moving her own special brand of intimidation closer to the officer. "Take a look. Then let us go on our way. We have things to do."
"I want to get drunk and laid," Elita said growling at the officer. "Its been a while and I'm frag out of patience."
The 'Con officer glanced at his crew. "Take them to the office. Make sure they're checked out. We're going to turn the ship."
They walked off to the office none too happily and after three joors were given a pass, a license to run things to Cybertron and a level of security clearance that would allow them to go to different non-military places including Kaon.
It went perfectly.
-0-Here
"If you just did-"
Shimmering optics filled with intense frustration and a borderline insane intensity to succeed met that helpful notion. The helpful notion was pulled back as Optimus shut the helpful mouth that spoke it with an enormous grin. It was obvious that Ironhide had it 'all under control, slag it, Prime'. The infants who were watching were dazzled.
CAMPING WAS AWESOME!
Orion watched his father struggling with the fire device, then walked to him and bent down looking sideways and upward at the ignitor that was giving his old man a fit. "ATAR! WHAT YOU!?"
Ironhide paused to look at his little doppelganger bent over to see and felt a chuckle begin in his peds. Glancing at Optimus who was stifling his own guffaw, he rose. "You try it."
Optimus who had been studying the device as Ironhide struggled knelt and touched a button on a side panel. The device internally burst into flames. The light it shed was amazing and adjustable. The stove part to heat up the rations had its own switch too. Right now, it was going to be the 'camp fire'.
Ironhide stared at the device, then Prime, then the device, Orion's aft, Prime, his own servos …
-0-There
They carried their gear bags as they walked to the city, the astonishing destruction making conversation moot. The city had been sacrificed by Ratbat and his partner to be a distraction so that the Decepticons could take the Temple and its treasures. Prime had made the terrible spark destroying decision that the Temple and the AllSpark were more the more essential target, thereby condemning Polyhex to a futile end.
Walking through the shelled streets, climbing over debris still waiting to be removed, looking at the towers that were destroyed as well, they made their way to a vehicle rental shop in a clearing nearby. They could feel the ghosts and the burden that Prime's spark carried from the decisions he made. To have the thought and sure knowledge that the destruction of your beloved home world had occured was one thing. To walk in it, to smell the destruction and see it everywhere you looked was beyond expression.
They continued onward carrying the pieces of the precious replicators, the devices a small offering of atonement by one portion of a devastated people to another.
-0-Here
Ironhide stacked the carefully packed containers near a boulder, their contents protected from whatever might come. Optimus was kneeling explaining to the younglings and infants that they were going to stay here overnight and do things together.
"What about Ada, Atar?" Spirit asked sweetly. "Will he come too?"
"Ada is working, son," Optimus said gently. "This is boys night out."
They looked at him a moment, then Rambler grinned. "Are we going to be arrested when its over?"
It took all Ironhide and Optimus could do not to laugh.
-0-There
They found a transport and rented it. Stuffing it full of their gear, they clambered aboard to drive to the location where they had located the Resistance before. The sky overhead was gray and cloud covered, the scent of metallic rain in the thin contaminated air a warning of the night to come. Fires that had burned for years had died away long ago, their heat and ferocity apparent in the melted metals and scorch marks that still pockmarked the city. The roads out of town were sketchy, many of them still broken and littered. The closer you got to Kaon, Capital City and Iacon, the better the infrastructure and the more apparent the effort to rebuild could be seen.
Elita drove slowly over the broken highway missing this and that broken thing. The closer they came to their targeted area the fewer bits of scattered debris could be seen. Most of it was removed to one side, waiting in piles to be recycled and disposed of at some future date. Buildings that were iconic were missing or so destroyed they had to think hard to remember them properly. Signs that pointed out where to go to get anywhere were missing along with the overhead light poles that made driving on Cybertron glorious at any time of the orn or night.
They had to use maps downloaded internally to find their way toward the city where the Decepticons first arose in the revolution that grew out of millions of years of inequity and the Clampdown. Kaon was Jazz's home town and he waited with dread until it began to appear in the horizon, a broken darkened skyline that never was beautiful before destroyed severely as if deserving one more indignity before the end.
They stared at the pitiless area they passed through remembering how it once was with the millions who lived there and gave it a vitality that was strong even in their destitution. No one said a word as they drove.
-0-Here
They stood in front of Optimus and Ironhide, eight little smiling faces listening intensely as Optimus read from a little datapad that contained the combined wisdom of both mechs as pertaining to the 'mission' of the Autobot Scouts and its activities thus far. Four younglings listened with great seriousness as four others strained to understand even if they only knew one out of every ten words.
Ironhide looked at them proudly as he stood holding an 'activity' box that would be 'skill number 1' on the path to self sufficiency and all around good citizenship. Prime finished and looked down over his datapad. "Any questions?" he asked with a smile.
Spirit raised his arm.
"Son?" Optimus asked.
"Can I be your buddy?" he asked with hopeful optics.
Optimus looked at Ironhide. :Uh, they're supposed to be buddies for each other. What do we do?:
Ironhide shrugged slightly. :Well, you be his buddy this time. The next activity, he has to find someone else:
Optimus nodded. "Alright. Now why don't we choose buddies?"
Rambler chose Praxus because he was 'so little and cute, Atar. I'll help him find good stuff'. Sunspot chose Miracle because he was looking at rocks and they 'weren't the right ones, right Atar? He will need a helper, right?'" T-Bar turned to Kaon and took his servo. He didn't give a reason for why he chose that infant but Kaon didn't care. He LOVED T-Bar. Spirit walked to Optimus and turned standing with him, a giant proud smile on his little face. He was comically small to his incredibly big atar. Optimus smiled himself.
Orion on the other servo turned and walked to the fire box bending over to study it. Then he managed to stuff three rocks into it before Ironhide claimed him as 'his little buddy, slag it.' They were all dispersed.
Ironhide turning with Orion in one servo picked up the box. He stared at Optimus. "Lead on, McDuff."
Optimus turned searching for the reference as Spirit followed happily. Prime grinned when he did. "Follow me," he said and they did.
-0-There
They parked their vehicle and hoped it would be there when they got back. The slimy bot in charge of a security lot promised them but no one had any trust or hope. They gathered their bags and turned to walk down the street,heading for the cratered part of town that would require them to go below the surface to prevent themselves from becoming targets for the sharpshooters that sat in towers all around the city's perimeter.
The guards were there to keep the criminal element contained as the mentally disturbed, dementedly cruel, homeless and reckless were the only ones unwise enough to live in the ruins of the city. Never a beautiful place, never given enough to become even a tolerable place, the Kaon on that side of the dividing line was incredibly dangerous.
This was were the Resistance lived. The Decepticons never came there to harass them. The few that tried were never seen again. With a light step and linked sensors, a handful of femmes and one mech slipped under the net and found a manhole for a sewer/drainage line. Climbing down the ladder, tossing their gear inside, Arcee was the last to disappear below as the manhole cover slid back into place.
No one would ever be able to know that anyone had passed through this area in vorns.
-0-Here
They walked in a line, the sparklings getting a ride but for Kaon. He walked happily along with T-Bar, the pair holding servos. Their tiny legs set the pace as they crept along toward the first 'activity location'. Chat filled the air as the 'troop' trooped forward heading toward an area that held 'artifacts'.
Part of the criteria of finding a good camping site was the idea of accommodating the three activities that they had managed to come up with on such short notice. They had both poured over the manuals of the Boy and Cub Scouts, Girl Guides, Royal Rangers and Pathfinders, Union International de Guides d'Europe and the Blue Birds. Finding activities as well in the Girl Scouts of America handbook, they decided that a soft area to dig was essential. They had found a camping spot with sand. Then on a break the two had flown to the spot and buried 'artifacts'.
One activity down. Two more to go.
Optimus rounded a huge boulder half buried in sand and spotted their 'find area'. He paused and looked down, the infants on their peds looking up while Miracle patted his arm. He put Miracle down and Sunspot glommed him taking his servo. The others were placed on the ground including Ironhide's 'buddy', Orion. Optimus knelt down. "Here is a place where we are going to study Mars. Mars is your home and we have to not only understand it so we can live here well, we have to know what it needs so we can protect it. So what we have to do now is dig in the ground here," he said waving his arm to show the area, "to see what lies below. The more we know, the better we can be as stewards of the planet. And as Autobot Scouts, we have to be stewards and caretakers of our home world."
They all nodded with serious expressions including Miracle who thought his atar was a god. Kaon nodded because this was his grandatar who to him was a god. Praxus nodded because Rambler was nodding and he thought Rambler was a god. Orion didn't nod. He was too busy picking his nose and looking around on the ground humiliating his atar half to the Pit.
Optimus snorted as he watched the little black mech. "I see he takes after you."
Ironhide bent down and tapped Orion's servo. Glancing at Prime, he snorted. "That is one prime sparkling. All of my sparklings are prime."
Optimus took a moment to get the joke, then grinned. "We are aren't we." He looked at the infants who were waiting patiently, then grinned again. "Uncle Ironhide has the tools. What you need to do is dig, then put anything interesting you find in the little buckets. You work as teams. This is about teamwork as well. When you find something you don't understand, Uncle Ironhide and I will help you. When its all over, we can get together and look at what we found and decide what it is and how it came to be here. Are there any questions?"
Spirit put his arm up.
"Son?" Optimus asked gently.
"Can we give our stuff to Ada?" he asked sweetly.
Prime having an internal 'awww' moment nodded. "I think that will be an amazing idea."
Sunspot grinned taking that remark to be that all of their finds would belong to Uncle Prowl. Ironhide handed him gear so he took a yellow bucket and two little shovels as well as Miracle's servo. "Come on, Miracle. Let's find stuff for your ada."
One by one, pair by pair, they got their little yellow buckets and shovels, walking to their sand area to dig. Optimus took his, a tiny thing in his servos and turned with Spirit to 'find things for Ada too, Atar. Right?' Ironhide snorting with amusement took his tiny bucket and shovels. He stared down at Orion who was poised to pick his nose again but didn't. He dropped his arms and smiled up.
Ironhide smirked as he shook his helm. "You are a caution, sparkling. Let's go see what we can find." With that, he turned with Orion in tow and found a piece of the area to dig.
Orion would help him.
Mostly.
-0-TBC
2013 (3)