NOTE: Transformers: Prime Season 3 is starting Friday. I am not going to be able to watch until the show levels off because its so intense from the commercials that I've seen on the Hub. I would hope that someone will drop me a brief note on what happened in the eps so I can know when its safe for the muse and me to watch. I can read stuff but not watch it. Without a clue about when things get easier to watch, I can't. SNIFFLE! I AM SUCH A WOOS! I still haven't seen TF4 movie yet. Yes, I am a baby. Or shall I say, my muse is. :D
-0-Now lets put the snivel aside and PLAY FRAGGING BALL!
The Diego Diaries: Shadow Box Interlude 13 (240)
The ball was thrown and everyone clanged together, a hair raising thing to see on the screen let alone in person. Barbara Morshower and Lonnie Epps stood together screaming for their team, Iacon. Jumping up and down, they yelled like a Wrecker at the behemoths playing not that far away from them.
Neither of them were aware that a team of security sat in the area in front of them to take the blows if anyone or anything headed their way. They were ready to stand up and deflect or absorb life threatening debris from the field of play including players punted into the stands as per Prime's orders. The humans didn't know that and so far it hadn't happened to come to pass.
One never knew with Cybertronian football.
They crashed and dashed, the ball going out of bounds. Altihex set up to throw it in and Iacon set up to kick them in the slats. This was the last chance either team had to affect the course of the championship. Altihex could eliminate Iacon barring screw ups from Kaon or Vos and Iacon could earn a place knocking Vos into the wild card if the gods approved.
It didn't read to most that they did. The slaggers.
Pause.
/...Forgive me, Primus, for I have sinned …/ -nearly every Iacon fan in the stadium...
The cameras followed the action closely, giving the viewers a bird's optic view of the carnage. It wasn't lost on the viewers of Earth.
In a militia HQ buried in a mountainside in the western United States...
They watched the game on the television silently. They were studying the players, learning the differences among body types as well as gathering other vital intel about the enemy. The intensity of the play, the abandon of the players to win, all of it was noted. What bothered them the most was their indifference to injury. The blows they were taking were lethal to their own human species. None of them would survive what the Cybertronians were taking in their stride.
In Resistance cells and HQs all over the world, the enemy was taking notes. What they were finding wasn't promising. First of all, they were so outclassed it wasn't even funny. Secondly, these were incredibly tough mechanisms. It would be like playing chicken in their SUVs with an aircraft carrier for them to go toe-to-toe.
They were a highly organized hierarchical military directed foe. Their army could be found at every layer of their society. They were efficient, highly educated, extremely quick to supply that which was needed both among the military and their civilian counterparts. Everyone was on board at all levels and they displayed unity of purpose.
They were also getting bigger and stronger with each newly arrived wave of refugees.
They had complete solidarity with their city and its inhabitants. Their allegiance with the Prime was evident. The possibility of cracks to exploit were very small. There was also the disparity between them and the aliens with their weapons systems, personal arms and the Seekers. A single Seeker would be a devastating weapon to stand against if the past was any window to the future.
They sat quietly, talking softly as they drew as much information as they could from the broadcast. They did it with all of the programs and the preliminary indications were that any direct confrontation with any of them would be suicide.
They would have to devise other things. They would also have to upgrade their weapons.
-0-Elsewhere
The restaurant was nearly empty as the wait staff sat watching the game on the iphone propped on the bar. The game from Mars had taken traffic to a standstill as people stayed home to watch. When it was over, they would flood in and the chief topic of conversation would be the game. It happened every time that one came was broadcast. They watched and enjoyed the calm before the storm.
-0-At the game
Altihex stood at the sideline waiting to receive the toss in. The ball had been kicked out of bounds by an Iacon doofus who had gotten the word from his teammates: "DOOFUS!"
Said doofus had weighed in on that commentary with a right cross to the chops. The referees broke up the altercation and for their efforts got a slagging dressing down for interfering by everyone on the team including the doofus. Then they turned to the matter at servo. Slagging Altihex to the Pit.
"THROW IT!"
"THROW IT, SLAGGER! DON'T LET THEM SET UP!"
The thrower ignored the throwee-ers as he tried to find an opening among the writhing sea of Iacon dipshits. He found one and threw it.
Right into the grasping servos of an Altihex defensive back.
He was crouching behind a teetering tower of forwards. Everyone in Altihex including Doofus turned and jumped into the air. It seemed like slow motion, the rising of mechanisms and their resulting fall.
They didn't fall as fast as mechanisms would on Earth. The gravity was much lighter. The bots went up and came down.
Eventually.
When they landed the wily back wasn't there. He was running for his life begging Primus to allow him to be fast enough to miss becoming paste under the massed tonnage of free falling mechs.
The speed with with he pivoted and ran would be discussed in the sports bars and hardware stores of Autobot City for nano-seconds to come. It would be remembered as the play old what's-his-name did that didn't matter a slagging bit in the final outcome.
He had a clear field.
He had a mass of raging mechanisms following him.
He had a shot on goal.
He took it.
The goalie who seemed to levitate without effort glommed onto it and nearly went through the hoop himself. It was (ball)bearing busting.
The front row of that side of the stadium groaned.
They hid their faces.
They stood up.
They climbed over the railing.
They almost made it to the field when they were intercepted.
They brawled.
They resisted.
They were carted off.
It was spark breaking.
But all was not lost. Magistrate's Court the next orn would be swinging.
When the mayhem was sorted on the sidelines, they turned to sort the mayhem in the end zone. Altihex was slagging it out with Iacon, both teams nose assembly to nose assembly as they discussed each others parentage at the top of their vocal capacitors.
It was that tense.
No one knows who threw the first punch but they all agreed that they had no idea referees could fly that high. Rising in his seat, stepping over the railing, Springer's grinning visage appeared on the jumbotron. The Wreckers, security from the Day/Night Watch who were there and a couple of very irritated Day/Night Watch clerical femmes from Substation #3 stepped down and marched to the gathering storm in the center of the field.
By the time they got there a scrum had broken out with two mechs in the middle gripping each others necks as their teams locked arms around bodies to pull them apart. Both sides moved forward and back as the two mechs strangling each other gasped, their necks stretching under the sheer torque of that much pull.
Springer reached the scrum and climbed up on top walking to the two mechs in the center. He pulled out his pistol and bopped them both on the noggin. They slipped into the tussle and disappeared.
"GET THEM, SPRINGER! TELL THEM!" one of the two clerical femmes said as she stood with the Wrecker and Watch mechs shaking her fist. They grinned down at the two femmes already having decided who among them would extricate the little hot heads if the mess got out of servo. Until that happened, it was fun to stand, watch and take bets on their internal com lines.
For a moment nothing happened, then all of the mechs stopped and stood up. For a moment Springer was standing there grinning, gun in servo. Then he fell from sight into the belly of the beast.
The crowd watching the spectacle laughed like hyenas as Springer emerged enraged. Pointing his pistol, he separated the sides and turned to the officials. "GET THIS GOING AGAIN, YOU SLAGGERS! DON'T MAKE ME COME OUT HERE AGAIN!"
The most senior referee sucked up his mech hood and glared up at Springer who had a good 30-40 feet on him give or take a yard or two. "FRAG YOU! GET OFF MY PLAYING FIELD!"
Springer sneered down at the ref, deciding it would be poor sportsmanship for the sparklings if he pistol whipped the slagger into the next millennium then and there. He made a promise to himself to do it if he ever saw him on the street, then turned and yelled his way back to his seat. Everyone sat with him, hooting and ragging on his awesome feats of peacekeeping all the while considering Springer getting his aft kicked nearly as entertaining as the halftime show.
Nearly.
-0-Ratchet
"They remind me of something," he said musing on his thoughts. "Springer reminds me of Marshall Dillon."
Ironhide grinned. "Who's Miss Kitty?"
"Drift," Ratchet said with a grin.
"I'll make sure to tell them," Ironhide said.
"Do," Ratchet said. "It will teach them to not tell me all of their personal business." He looked at Ironhide and the two burst into laughter. Then they turned to the game.
The score board was ticking away with Iacon 6, Altihex 7. It was getting to be scary time. Ratchet gripped Ironhide's finials like the gear shifts on a D8 Cat. Ironhide resigned himself to being driven to the waning minutes of the game.
PUNT!
SLAM!
RUN! RUN!RUN!RUN! BONG! SPLAT!
JUMP! DOG PILE!
TWEET! "PENALTY TO IACON!"
"WHY?!"
"BECAUSE YOU'RE UGLY!"
"WHAT THE FRAG!?"
"DON'T MAKE ME GET SPRINGER!"
"GO AHEAD! WHIMP!"
"SPRINGER!"
Springer ignored both of them. The game continued.
THROW IN!
INTERCEPT!
RUN!RUN! PASS!
CATCH! RUN!RUN! SHOOT ON GOAL!
MISS!
MOMENT OF SILENCE! DEEP RESOLVE BREWING! BLOODSHOT OPTICS AND ENERGON STAINED VISAGES GLARE AT EACH OTHER!
A new center for Iacon entered the game and glared at their counterpart across the line. They gave each other the stink optic as they hunkered down to do their thing. That they were a bonded pair didn't matter. That they had three sparklings sitting in the stands watching didn't matter. That they hadn't fragged for a couple of orns wouldn't seem the hardship it would become when the Iacon center decided to hold a grudge against the Altihex defensive lineman bolting up their critical energy port in extreme angst and grudgery.
Like that.
HUT!
TOSS! RUN-RUN-RUNNNNNNNNN! KABONG!
Altihex's defensive center lay on the ground counting the birdies as their bond, the Iacon center ran onward. That they were tackled and carted off too was only going to matter to the two of them when they became conscious and not a moment sooner.
New players walked in silently dreading the final five minutes of the game as they sensed the energy from the field and from the stands. It was nicer on the field.
The mood in the stands was getting tense as 220,000 individuals stomped, screamed and let it all out because these were the thing that (we) they care(d) about. 210,000 fans in the next stadium did the same, not counting over 300,000 at the airfield and the three losers in Ops Center who were jumping up and down in nervous excitement.
The seismographs on Earth could read the rumble.
Far far away in a galaxy … uh, in the same galaxy, it was a very different story. On every monitor including internal ones, Paragon and his crew were watching too. The glitch that they had detected on a relay that was a router to the Autobot outlying fort, something called Fort Apache had sprung a leak. The images coming to them were astonishing.
They had begun with silent shots around a city.
A slagging Cybertronian city.
Then they had morphed into a real Cybertronian football game with commentators, stadiums, seemingly millions of individuals and teams with familiar names.
He himself was from Vos.
Paragon watched as ghosts from the past took part. Everyone who was Cybertronian knew Alor. Everyone understood the trappings around the stadium. Everyone was mouth opened agog at the sight of sparklings and Neo of all individuals helping them perform.
Paragon had watched with building dread as the cameras panned the crowds at all three sites showing the Supremes, shots of Fort Max and Metroplex as well as literally thousands of former Decepticons and Seekers who were very clearly citizens and supporters of the Prime.
Prime had made a city, a real Cybertronian city. One that had the slagging Temple of Simfur sitting in it, dome gleaming in the sunlight. It wasn't a rustic military barracks with refugees. It was a very highly developed, beautiful, populated Cybertronian city. He was flabbergasted but he hid it well. They watched the game, very little commentary heard as they saw known characters like the team coaches, some of the players, the Wreckers along with Springer, shots of Rampage and Starscream fill the screen.
They also watched the incredible happiness of the people. They were having the time of their lives. That night, the discussion would be intense at their own fortress. When it came time for the Seeker who identified himself to Prime as Hope to go on patrol with his bond3, his two friends and his brother, the lot of them would defect.
-0-The Game
The ball went up.
The goal was missed.
Iacon lost.
Altihex won.
Altihex didn't get a playoff berth.
Iacon got the wild card but short of Vos being blasted to the Pit, it didn't matter.
Kaon would claw their way to the finals.
Vos would try but Kaon had a dream.
It was a little dream. They dreamed that their town would be first at something good. They dreamed that they would finally be the best among Cybertronians at something more than public drunkenness, unwed births, homelessness, seedy bars, tax evasion, potholes, number of free ranging pleasure bots and their pimps, poor sanitation, protoform wasting, tenement fires, birth defects, insanity, business failure, public indifference, youth gangs, elder abuse, road team criminality, banned substance production, domestic violence, hunger and pestilence.
They wanted to be first at football.
It was their dream.
It was a small dream.
They were prepared to kill to achieve it.
Sunstreaker and Sideswipe stood holding their daughters, their amusement at Bluestreak's happy dance genuine. But nothing in their bodies gave an inch to the idea that their team would do their best to be first among something that didn't have an asterisk next to it.
They were determined to help Kaon become the best team, the first team to win the Championship Football title of the Martian Adult Football League. Then their kids would know that their genitors were somebody.
Prowl danced and Ratchet grinned, his mope a private sour thing. Ironhide grinned, Blackjack winked as Alor gave them both the stink optic. Infants crowed. Prime mourned deeply inside as his 'serenity' held through another disappointing game.
They turned and began to move slowly to the steps heading to the Fortress and dinner at Cafe Praxus. As they did, the scene was shown to the enemy at Camp Paragon and all of the deeply surprised and surprisingly homesick mechs and Seekers that were there huddled around screens watching things that they never hoped nor dreamed existed anywhere in the galaxy including Cybertron.
-0-TBC
2013 (3)