NOTE: So, I knocked this little epic together and tried to send it. My internet is down. So are my phones. I couldn't even call to report myself. :D:D:D So here you are. A day late. More to come. ITS FOOTBALL WEEKEND! -love, me
-0-Now, back to the hoo-haw...
The Diego Diaries: Meeting 1 (551) edited
-0-Prowl
He stood at the communications station with a frown. A message had come in that was only partly expected. He considered how it was that slag always came during celebrations. Turning to the table, he sat down with Optimus who had just come back from a tour of the city. Things were on track, the metro formers were happy and the game was tomorrow.
Prowl sat, then slid the datapad to Optimus. He read it, then vented a soft sigh. "I suppose we should expect this. A celebration happens which means slag automatically reaches us. Call everyone. Military and legal only. We can hash this out together." Prime rose, then walked to the conference room with his work to wait for the Senior Autobots to come.
-0-Moments later
They sat around the table reading the datapad as it made the rounds. When it reached Blackjack he spoke for everyone. "Frag. Now?"
"I think they know somehow," Ratchet said as he sat back in his chair. Ironhide nodded as he sat in the next chair.
"I want to handle this in a certain way. I want to drive the point home with a dagger into their sparks. It would mean a slight change of plans for game day but not much," Prime said. He looked at Prowl. "I think we need to have them over for the night, inviting them now and allowing them to see the city. It would require us putting on the dog as the humans say."
"What exactly do you mean, as if I don't know already," Ratchet said with a grin. Eons of vorns of millennia working on nefarious plans together had almost synched his processor with Prime's.
Prowl smirked. "Do tell. Loser."
Ratchet laughed. "I think we are going to put on a show. I would imagine bridging them here from there. I would imagine a nice dinner at the Residence with all the bells and whistles as they say. An elegant dinner, lots of spit shined mechs … perhaps the ten Guards that hid your genitors. They can stay in the Ambassador apartments in Tower 4 in the Mare..."
"We have ambassadorial apartments?" Prime asked with surprise.
"We do," Prowl said nodding. "I, Prowl of Praxus anticipated."
"You did," Ratchet said. "Whiner." He looked at Prime. "I would assume a nice breakfast catered to their apartment, a careful tour of the colony with an emphasis on showing our invincible implacable will and power, then a beautiful lunch. I would suggest the new tower restaurant in the round, The Rookery over in Tyger Pax. It would show everything to these poseurs again as it slowly rotates. Of course, their ability to record would be shut down by me. If they can't go over the details, the details in memory get scarier over time. The game would be next. A formal dinner somewhere, maybe the Residence again with cocktails and small talk before. Then the fireworks. At that point, we punt them back to their forts."
It was quiet a moment, then Starscream snorted. He chuckled a moment. Then he glanced at Prowl. "It would save on your cutlery if when they came we just blasted them to molecules."
Prowl grinned slightly, then nodded. "I think so. I never figured our first elegant state dinner in the Residence would be for Paragon, Cyclonus and a slagging pirate."
"I could not have said it better," Venture said with a smirk. "Though if my genitors were sitting in front of me, I would have tried."
Miler snickered, everyone chuckled and Prowl shifted in his seat.
"Whiner. I see you get it honestly," Ratchet said before Prowl threw his empty cube at the medic.
Prime who was grinning at the sport nodded. "I think its a plan. I will send a message to them, then we will organize quickly. Jetta, I would like you to go around the city to disable and/or lock up anything that they might have access to as well as troubleshoot any possibilities for them to make mischief or glean intel. Especially the … what was it you called him?" Prime asked glancing at Prowl. "Slagging pirate?"
Prowl squirmed, Miler smirked, Venture quashed a grin.
Jetta nodded.
"Magnus, I want you to organize security. Please inform the Elite Household Guards that their incredible poise is required for our guests to enjoy."
Magnus nodded.
"Jazz, please make sure that the apartments these individuals occupy are up to our standards of security and comfort. If you get my point."
Jazz grinned, then nodded.
"Starscream, would you look over the fleet parked around the city in clear view of the airfield and their apartment. Could you make sure it makes their optics bleed?"
Starscream smirked. "I live to serve."
Hoots met that, then died down as everyone awaited their task.
"Barron, I would like your services in drafting any agreements or treaties that they might seek. I want it to be in our favor and frag them. Also, I do not want any bad actors running around making spectacles of themselves. Any bombings during this time will be inconvenient."
"To say the least," Barron said with a smirk. He looked at Springer. "I will need you to help me with identifying those that need watched. I am assuming, sir, that you just want them watched?"
Prime nodded. "We are not Sentinel and his government. Watching is sufficient until these mechs leave." He looked around the table. "Ratchet, you are on duty for this mission twenty-four and a half joors until they go. I would expect your usual load of slag to make their visit memorable." Prime grinned.
"Count on it," Ratchet said. "Right now, the metro formers are in good servos. All of the major stuff is going on and I bonded them to medics for the duration of their refit."
"Good." Prime grinned. "Ironhide, look menacing but appropriate. That goes for you too, Blackjack. Bring Flint home. The three of you are known to all of them. It will help make the point of our strength, the depth of our bench. Alor? Look your usual self. The one thing that really unites all of the disparate forces is you and your music. Perhaps tomorrow night during the cocktail portion you can play something on Rambler's piano."
Alor nodded. "If I am moved enough, I will compose something. Perhaps an ode to the death of the Decepticons and liars in general."
"Ah, a happy tune," Starscream said with a smirk.
Chuckles were had. Then Prime looked at the former Decepticons in the room. "I would like you to be prominent in the background, close enough to have them see and know you, far enough back that you still have your orn. I do not want this to uproot everyone's plans."
"Our own too?" Prowl asked with a smirk.
"You need to ask?" Prime replied. He looked at Venture and Miler. "We will need you to take care of the infants for a couple of orns. I know school is out but we can shift them around perhaps."
"We can do it," Miler said. "We can help with your infants, Ratchet."
Ironhide nodded. "We will parcel them out. Between you and Ratchet's family, we can cover this. The twins have a game so they won't be able to do anything to assist."
Everyone nodded. Then Prime sat back. "Starscream will organize the ship placements. Jazz will bug the apartment. Magnus will look tall. Blackjack will frown. Alor will sing. Ironhide will do whatever Ratchet tells him to do. Ratchet will be officially insane and Prowl will remain as always a whiner." He had to dig out from underneath the scorn and thrown objects.
As they began to arise, Ratchet remembered something. "Oh, oh."
Everyone paused. "What?" -everyone
"They will be expecting different individuals for their receptions," Ratchet said.
"What do you mean as if I didn't know and I told you so because I thought it was insane when it happened and you didn't listen to me did you?" Prowl said coming to an instant conclusion.
"I think everyone needs to sit down for a moment," Optimus Prime said with a giant grin.
They did.
"Ratchet, do the honors," Prime said with a chuckle.
Ratchet sat a moment, then leaned forward slightly. "It sort of goes like this... we pranked their afts."
"How?" Starscream asked with delight.
"We send them edited programming and the like over the fake 'leak' out there on the big array and Seeker comm line. We also sent them … uh, jokes." Ratchet grinned in spite of himself. "I wrote messages that were sent to them supposedly between Arcee, Kup, Bumblebee, Prowl, Prime and Springer. We sort of punked them using the uh, Prime's prank from Diego. Remember? It was YOUR prank as I recall," Ratchet said with a pointed look.
Prime's grin faded slightly, then resurrected itself. "You can't make me feel badly. That was a prank for the ages."
"That's true," Ratchet said with a chuckle. "Here is what we did. We have been sending these so-called personal messages out of the line like they were part of the system's glitch. They were personal messages between Optimus and the Missus."
Prowl frowned at Ratchet. "Loser," he muttered.
"Old whiner here wasn't the missus in the messages. Springer was," Ratchet said with a chuckle.
Springer blinked, then grinned. "This is going to leave a mark, right?"
"They always do, youngling. The moment you agreed to help Prime, you bit your own aft." Ratchet sat back grinning. "The story in the messages is simple. Prime is an overworked wimp with out-of-servo younglings, a grind for a bond, insane old folks and a bit of side action with Prowl."
It was silent a moment, then howls of laughter greeted that. Blackjack and Alor looked at Ratchet with intense admiration and not a little fear. Ironhide basked in the awesomeness of the awesomeness. Miler and Venture's faces alternated between intense hilarity and intense angst over the impropriety and possible blasphemy regarding the person of the FIRST SLAGGING DISCIPLE OF PRIMUS! Though, they would have left out slagging.
Magnus sat mutely, unaware yet that he was in this little pantomime of tastelessness too, the dead wood dead head boy friend of the daughter, the wanton slightly slutty Arcee. He had no idea that he was despised by his soon-to-be genitor-in-law, Springer when Ratchet finally gets permission from Prime to send his next magnum opus out to the boondocks, the one where Arcee is sparked and Springer is hunting Magnus through the Mall at Metroplex with a gun.
That one.
Bumblebee who wasn't there would be filled in by First Aid who was and would learn about Bee's criminal tendencies, road rage, somewhat slutty wantonness regarding certain medical personnel and cul de sacs as well as the several times he was arrested for supplying minors with high grade. That his university aptitude scores were in the negative numbers didn't help either. Nor did that case of cosmic clap he got at that party where he ended up hanging upside down from a light pole in Tyger Pax in an apparent re-enactment of his one-on-one with Megatron, the suicidal little fragger.
He was in general the son of his father. Whoever that truly was.
Bee would laugh insanely, then comfort First Aid who would still be feeling the burn. He would do it in the nearest cul de sac.
That Springer was a total grind, that he was a workaholic, that he was perhaps SEVERELY repressed in the 'facing department was a revelation everyone absorbed as well in the yet-to-see the light of day message to be sent to the idiots out there. The VALIANT DOCTOR RATCHET ™ adhered to the oath of confidentiality as always but the news of frost bite on Prime's prong eventually would make its way out to the general public. Hopefully.
The odds of that one being approved without massive revisions were in the negative numbers too.
Drift on the other servo nearly fell off his chair laughing.
The recitation paused there to accommodate the vapor(s)(lock) by Miler and a wheezing fit of laughter from a nearly prostrate Prime.
Who knew you could die of laughter?
Then there was Prowl.
Prowl, the hot potato. Prowl the prowler. It fit.
In the message.
The straight laced prim bot smirking across the table at his nemesis, drinking buddy and brig partner sat with his arms crossed and his focus carefully away from his genitor's optics. Prowl was the frag toy of the Prime. Behind Springer's rather shapely aft of course.
/... slagging right … in all universes …/ -Prowl having an unguarded unmonitored internal moment with himself
All of this plotting resulted in the following:
"OH MY WORD! RATCHET!" -Alor laughing madly
"Best thing you ever did was bond with that maniac." -Blackjack to Ironhide who sat proudly nodding.
"LOSER!" -Prowl secretly pleased in some dim corner of his mind that wasn't fed with the light of propriety that he was considered hot stuff even if he knew he gave a good appearance and was considered very handsome by most as he railed at Ratchet to appease his scandalized genitors.
"Oh my." -Prowl's scandalized genitors who were secretly laughing because they were experimenting with fun.
And impropriety.
Even as they secretly prayed for Ratchet's redemption from the Pit for mocking the First Disciple of Primus because they were raised conservatively and religiously, they were laughing on the inside.
Relaxing your sphincter is a process.
Like that.
"Why am I not in the messages? How could they talk about such things without me?" -Starscream
"Its not always about you, Star." -A smirking Thundercracker
"What?! It's ALWAYS about me." -a grinning slightly serious Starscream
"BWAHAHAHAHAHAAHAAA!" -Red Wing
"This is fun. Don't you think so?" -The Great Elder to Silverclaw.
"I never have more fun than at these meetings, Elder. It makes my orn." -Silverclaw.
"This is epic, Ratchet. I want you to know that I approve these messages." -Arcee after laughing madly.
"What? You are not a slut." -Magnus bringing the room to a total halt.
Everyone looked at Magnus, taking an awww moment. Then they all turned to Ratchet. He grinned. "There's more. All they really know so far is that Prime and Springer are a couple with Arcee and Bee as younglings. Kup is the grand genitor by the way and he's mostly senile. Springer works too much, nags Optimus too much and has awful younglings. Prime is having an affair on the side with Prowl. That's it so far. I care if they come and find out otherwise. We could lose our advantage over them with the link."
They sat a moment, Perceptor holding Wheeljack's servo he was so unnerved, then Prime grinned. "Let them come with their ideas. We can always slag them to the Pit. The orns of fun and pranks are over. Either they capitulate or they get 'blowed' up. No more Mr. Nice Prime."
Ratchet grinned. "Alright. I'll just write this up and post it on the internet at that fan fiction site."
Hoo-haw greeted that even as Ratchet was inundated over private links by everyone there including Barron for the address of the story site.
They broke up, literally, then stood heading out to make crooked things straight. As they did a terribly bemused Prime and a slightly smirking Prowl walked to the comm station in Ops Center to invite three scum bags for football weekend with the fam.
-0-TBC December 12, 2013
NOTE: I love army humor. These doodles are no exception. Hunker down. Its almost time for FOOTBALLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL!