The Diego Diaries: FOOTBAWL! 3 (401) (This story is now 2,745,281 words and 1,182 chapters)
-0-On the field
They stood awaiting the refs who would toss the ball into play. The riot had been quelled and everyone was walking back to the mid line. They glared at each other from across their side of the line as the crowd went nuts around them. A number of battered looking mini-cons and regular sized bots were being carted off by extremely put out young Night and Day Watch mechs. A petite pretty femme who ran the Security office administration for Springer as his left processor lobe stood by the sidelines, her arms folded crossly over her chassis as she watched the miscreants being carted off by the scruff of their chinny chin chins.
Uh, necks.
*cough*
She had waded into the fray herself, Her Boys (tm) a proprietary item in her processor. NO ONE fragged with Her Boys. She had been gently picked up and carried down to the field where she was set down and told to wait by a big Watch mech worried about her welfare. She was after all someone's ada. One only had to see her office with its half zillion pictures of her little mechs and big one to know that. A brisk argument accompanied that but it led nowhere. She merely unloaded with a wagging finger of motherhood on the bad bots as they were carted off, her big old Guard boys standing around her protectively, grins firmly on their faces.
Of course, it made the jumbotron, the teevees of Earth and parts out yonder...
"Look at her. That's a girl." -Man A, half in the bag. "She's cute."
"A sweet ride." Man B, admiring her lines unaware that she was only big enough to change into a rather perky moped. "What a pretty color for a girl car. Thing."
"What color is that? Everything looks kinda gray to me." Man C, about to slide under the table.
"I hear ya," Man B said as he missed his mouth with his martini and poured it down the front of his shirt.
The bartender grinned. Another day, another knucklehead...
-0-Nice house, nicer family
"Mama, look at her. Isn't she cute?" Pastor Bob's Wife
"I think so. She must be a two wheeler," Mama Annie said consulting her i-pad. "What a lovely little femme she is."
"She is," Papa Leonard said with a grin.
Pastor Bob nodded as he watched.
Everyone else grinned.
-0-On the field
They bent down setting for the play, the optics of each side glaring daggers into the optics of the other side. The ball was tossed in play and both teams slammed into each other. A camera team nearby kneeling on the sidelines had their cameras poised as that moment of bone crushing impact of high octane metallic marvels slamming into each other from zero to sixty in the space of 0.00000000000000001 seconds astonished everyone watching from Alcatraz to Kalamazoo.
They met and pushed upward from the power of their momentum. Servos grappled with servos as helms strove to butt the other guy into the stratosphere. Some connected and others missed, neither option slowing anyone down a whit. They charged forward pushing and being pushed as the center with the ball ran around the end. Vos was on fire as that worthy lit a sterno can of chutzpah under his own aft from fear, adrenaline and ego. He ran with the hopes of an entire city-state riding on his footfalls. He ran with the idea that perhaps a picture of him running would end up on the Autobot City version of Sports Illustrated. He ran with the ghosts of millions cheering him on hoping that in his rage and ability some small measure of their lack of respect as a place and people would be assuaged.
Bracket who was watching him set himself for a bum rush. That mech was cooking. Half of the forward line of Kaon was after him dragging half the forward line of Vos behind them. Hopping and screaming with rage, Kaon exhorted the other end of their own line who weren't wearing ped manacles aka Vos players to GET THE FRAGGING LEAD OUT!
Bracket set himself and waited, his body loose and his servos ready. The bot came at him like a runaway freight train and shot the ball. It went up, up, up.
Bracket deflected it.
The Vos bot landed on his face. His team started biting the ankles of the Kaon defenders who were dragging them and got a penalty for unnecessary teething.
Bracket stood poised and beautiful, an amazing specimen of Cybertronian mech hood. The player who had failed lay face first on the astroturf weeping. His penalized teammates were arguing with the refs, their coach on his way to join them.
Kaon was standing around patting each other on the aft in the way that all 'straight men' on Earth do when they want to congratulate their male companions for a job well done.
Like that.
*Cough*
Sideswipe stood near the goal with Hugo-Not and Sunstreaker. They were watchful and enormously beautiful. Hugo-Not was gigantic and kind, a sweet guy who liked to bash things in sport. He was hell in table tennis too. He stood between the twins, his size a great contrast to the long lean formats of the twins. They were built for speed but also possessed enormous power as well. They were echoes of each other and although their finials and other minor details made them different, they were obviously twins. Their temperament was slightly different … Sunstreaker was intense, wary and less trusting. Sideswipe was outgoing and funny. He was more approachable but could turn on a dime if the circumstances called for it. They were both intensely determined.
On Cybertron they were automatically suspect from birth due to the city-state of their separation, Kaon. They were left at a Youth Center abandoned for reasons unknown by their genitors. They weren't the only ones. The youth centers that were very common in the poorer quadrants of Cybertron were an acknowledgment by the state albeit small and inadequate that their system was a failure. Now on this field, a great wrong was going to be righted in some small way by those who had suffered it all their lives. Kaon would get respect. That Vos was only marginally higher on the scale than Kaon and their mechs were working for the same ends didn't matter. Only Kaon mattered to them.
The coaches were both on the field yelling as the refs sorted out the four fouls that they had seen happening in the last play. Bracket walked to the twins and paused, the cameras lingering on them lovingly, their personal intensity and beauty made for them. There were probably in the solar system no more beautiful athletic beings than this group who gathered to await the decision.
"Nice save," Sideswipe said with a grin as he slapped the big goalie on the shoulder.
Bracket smirked. "Thanks. How's the ankle?"
Sunstreaker snorted as he glanced down. "My son has done worse."
They chuckled, then the call was made. One foul on Vos for gumming, one foul on Kaon for kicking and the ins was going to Vos. The crowd gave that the love it deserved as the teams although grumbling began to organize for a free shot by Vos on the goal. Sunstreaker stood with intensity beside his brother outside the line as the Vos mech took the ball and looked at the goal. Bracket had to step away so he had a free shot.
He looked at the Vos section and found his family and friends. His bond was holding up their little femme. She was waving her pennant and pointing to him with a great smile. Everyone he loved and knew was there sending him support. Starscream and the Seekers were losing it in their sections as they hoped against hope that this player not known for making goals made one today.
He took the ball, gauged his shot and fired.
It went through.
His life was complete. His daughter had seen her atar do his best for her and all Vosnians. Nothing else today would be a problem for him, win, lose or draw. They moved toward the other end as they walked to allow Kaon their shot. Their center walked with the twins as he gathered his processor to make the goal. They were two goals ahead but this would help. No matter how many goals Vos might make, this would make them one ahead.
When they reached the spot, he took the ball. Feeling the optics of this and every other world upon him, he shot.
He missed.
Shaking his helm, he walked toward his team and was enveloped in their arms. Even the twins patted him. They then turned and walked back to allow Vos to take the ins at their goal line. It would be brutal now.
As if it wasn't before.
-0-Communication booth
Jazz and Blaster gave a running commentary about the play including the fist fights in the stands. The spectators at home would know about Drift and Springer, Springer's nose injury, the twins, Vos and Kaon to some extent, the rules of play as things came up and the Seekers in the stand.
"Most Seekers come from the area of Vos or around it. That was where their clans settled. Some are mountain clans and some urban. All of them are a type of mechanism slightly different from us. All of them are a pain in the aft when you have to fight them. We're lucky that they're on our side," Jazz said with a grin.
Blaster nodded. "That's true. Star, the Flight Commander of Seekers is sitting with the Great Elder and the Mountain Clan chieftain, Silverclaw. Harrier is the clan chieftain sitting next to Silverclaw. They are the most senior Seekers around with Rainmaker, the Great Elder, the one who rules their culture and has the most prestige and power. If he says something, the others follow because it means that much to their way of life and thinking to do that. He's a very great individual and a real ally to the Prime in the protection of this system."
It went on.
-0-The play
They made towers, some stunted around looking for the pass. That it didn't come was a slight surprise. The mech taking the ins took the ball instead and ran straight through two towers after fake passing to a comrade who 'bit the biscuit' as they say on Earth when someone gets flattened. He ran straight across and tossed it to a teammate who was standing in front of the goal. He caught it and turned tossing it gently through the hoop. Everyone went ape. Kaon stood counting their digits and the siren for half time blew.
So did the Kaon defense.
The score as it stood was Kaon, 2 ... Vos, 2.
-0-On the way out
Both teams lined up on the middle line and turned facing the Prime. Nodding their helms, their captains turning, they followed their banners out of the stadium to the locker rooms bitching and trading insults with each other as they walked out side by side in line. Their coaches, very close friends except on game day traded insults as well. They disappeared into the gate and half time began.
A line of femmes walked out followed by a line of mechs, all of them students at the Youngling Intermediate Day School. They were carrying swords and wore a sash that identified them as the middle level group. The Intermediate School had three levels for students to attend. The First Level, Middle Level and Last Level. Students spent years in each making their way upward as they passed their exams. The middle level group had practiced a long form kata in a sword discipline at their school and were now going to demonstrate it. The crowd became intensely quiet as they lined up bowing to them and Prime. Their instructor stood on the sideline watching them proudly. Then he nodded.
The students began.
The swords flashed as the students moved through their routines, a martialized Tai Chi-like format of dance, danger and warlike movement. They made shapes, then turned into different ones as they moved to music that played over the intercom. They were mesmerizing as they twirled, danced and did impossible things. It would last a while, then finish.
The place would go nuts with applause as the happy smiling younglings made their way off stage.
-0-TBC August 18, 2013 edited7-4-14
NOTES: Devcon is a character I like a lot and he has a lot of incarnations, most of them good. He has an unexplained INTENSE hatred of Cyclonus in one that is intriguing. Why is never explained due to the company going kaput but it is cool to consider.
Driving around in the Transformer world, it is discovered that Six Shot has a son who is … wait for it … an AUTOBOT! My list of very cool things is growing again. :D His name is Quickswitch and he wants to make up for his Dad's stuff. :D
Public service announcement: if you hate beacons and other slag tracking your interneting this might help you free yourself of the up to 22 little spy programs that are watching you on some sites. I was sent to ghostery dot com by a tech friend who showed me the software. It is a tiny Open Source program that tracks who is spying on you as you go from here to there and allows you to kill them to prevent them from coming back. I love it. I offer it to you for your protection. Open Source is the anti-google, anti-corporate community that makes things for free that actually help people. I use open source writing to do this story. :D Take care out there. :D