Speedwrite prompt fill - six
Title: Helping the helpless
Characters: Grapple
Rating: Teen
T-Series: Generation 1
Summary: Disposing and identifying the dead is a task no one wants - some mechs take the time to harvest parts that will save lives.
Prompt #1 An unsolved mystery
“Who were you?” Grapple asked.
The still, grey mech gave no answer.
Grapple was not bothered by the lack of response. Indeed, he would have been more astounded if the deactivated had spoken.
“Processor’s been fried,” he examined the melted cranial unit. “Distinctive features eradicated.”
In earlier times, medics did not need to ransack the recently deceased. Now though, with the war leaving hordes of dead and dying mechs in need of rare-parts, ransacking was the fastest way of finding usable parts.
“I am sorry,” Grapple removed intact inner parts - any piece of useable equipment might make the difference between deactivation and repair for the critically injured - before the remnants of the slagged frame was smelted. “Your identity will forever be known only to Primus.”
Stepping into the wash-racks, Grapple found himself no longer bothered by desecrating the dead - and that realization troubled him. “How much more can I see before I am a threat to my friends?” He refused to let the question and fear it raised to take hold.
Dion’s gray frame, stripped of all identity, removed of all pumps, tanks, equipment, tools and unslagged lines, slid into the smelting pit, along with dozens of other forgotten individuals, once vibrant with life.
Title: Beauty is more than skin deep
Characters: Sunstreaker, Hoist
Rating: K+
T-Series: Generation 1
Summary: There are a few health related-issues that Sunstreaker will never suffer from, due to his obsessive-compulsive need to maintain his appearance. Like gummed up gears.
Prompt #2 Stripping back the layers
“Is all this really necessary, Sunstreaker?”
Sunstreaker dipped the corner of a cleaning rag into the paint stripping solvent. “Yes.”
Hoist suffered the indignity of having someone else help him remove the last bit of stubborn color he could not reach on his own. “A visit to the wash-racks would have removed all the grime just fine.”
“Keep scrubbing.” Sunstreaker ordered, meticulously cleaning down to the protometal.
“All I really needed was a regular touch-up.” Hoist complied even while he didn’t quite complain. “Nobody else would care if I simply filled in the scratch before painting over.”
“New paint sticks best to bare metal.” The dirty, wet rag dropped to the ground. Sunstreaker took one long step back, pleased with the results. “Now we can proceed.”
Hoist tossed his twelfth cleaning cloth into the corner. “Good.” He was a bit surprised at how smoothly his movements felt.
“Didn’t you know, Hoist, that piling on additional layers of paint can inhibit movement?” Sunstreaker asked. “Even Ratchet knows not to let paint-build up get into servos and joints - and twelve overlapping coats is putting it on pretty thick.”
Title: Subjective outlook
Characters: Perceptor, Carly
Rating: K+
T-Series: Generation 1
Summary: There are many ways to look into the past. Perceptor invites Carly to a dig so she can experience one way through looking at long-buried evidence of people’s passing.
Prompt #3 An Archaeological Dig
“Pass me the brush.” Red fingers were outstretched.
“Sure, Perceptor.” Carly Witwicky handed over the requested tool. “Did you find something interesting?”
“Indubitably.” The Autobot scientist replied, carefully sweeping every speck of dust, every grain of rock, into a bucket for later analysis.
“Any hypothesis?” Carly asked, watching as something petrified was slowly exposed to the sun for the first time in a hundred years.
“Just one.” Perceptor focused his lens on the microscopic lines. “Your world is young.”
Carly blinked. “You can tell that by annualizing a fossilized tree?”
“My dear, the evidence is all around you - it’s even evident in currently thriving cultures.” Perceptor picked the bucket full of gravel up. “The pace of change today might be faster than all of your yesterdays, but, in my experience, any society that is stagnant and refuses to change, disintegrates in less than a generation.” The bucket of featureless rock fragments was shaken. “This site was a thriving metropolis of its time, before it was buried under a lava-flow.”
Carly shook her head. "Only you bots would encourage us humans to really examine the possibility of a young earth."
Title: A medic’s work is never done.
Characters: Hook, Astrotrain
Rating: K
T-Series: Generation 1
Summary: A medic’s work is never done - Hook wishes other mechs would learn to do basic maintenance instead of always demanding he fix their problems. Oh well, the injured can (should) learn to deal with minor issues on their own.
Prompt #4 Random Phrase Generator: (Troubled Keel)
“I don’t like this.” Hook slid underneath to more closely examine the keel of the shuttlecraft. “I really don’t like this.”
“What’s wrong?” Astrotrain demanded to know. “Can’t you just bang the dent out?”
“I could - if you wanted to forever remain in your shuttle form.”
“The reason I called you down here is because I AM STUCK!”
“Then let me do my job to find the underlying problem.”
Silence returned to the docking bay. It might have been total silence, except for the hiss of cooling engines, the constant drip-drip of water from a stalactite (who’s water source a.k.a. leak, the Constructicons hadn’t found), and occasional mutterings from the green medic as he examined the shielded underbelly of the triple changer.
At last! “Found the problem.”
Astrotrain yelped as something pinched, tugged, then released. He jumped back from the reaching servos, rubbing the strained leg-cable. “Give a mech some warning next time.”
Hook wiped his hands clean. “You’re fixed.” He departed for the Decepticon med-bay.
Astrotrain looked down, somewhat astonished to see hands and feet instead of his space-faring alt-mode. From his standing position, he took a huge step -
And promptly fell to the ground.
“Stupid gyroscope.” The triple-changer cursed, using the wall to pull himself upright once again. “Why else would a troubled keel interfere with my balance?” He had to use the wall as support, walking to his quarters - not that his hugging one side made him stand out from the rest of the scurrying crew.
Title: Tables turned
Characters: Spike Witwicky, Doctor Arkeville
Rating: K
T-Series: Generation 1
Summary: The problem with making a deal with someone more powerful, is that sometimes, you hold none of the cards, and are completely at his tender mercy.
Prompt #5 Surveillance Cameras
“Careful - big brother is watching.” Dr. Arkeville warned his hostage.
“Why do you care?” Spike asked, testing the duct-tape bonds.
“I don’t.” Dr. Arkeville was shocked by the question. “I just hate being observed by my enemies.”
“You do know the bots will find me?”
“Before or after I contact Megatron?” The man scientist smiled.
Spike found his mouth drop open in horror as one, then two cameras dropped from their perch.
“Good to see you, Laserbeak, Buzzsaw.” Arkeville praised the cassettes. “Tell your master I come with a bargaining chip.”
Instead of acknowledging the order, the winged cassettes transformed and grabbed the two humans.
“Wait! No!” Arkeville screamed at the mistreatment. “I bring a hostage - I am notone myself!”
The metal birds only squawked as they carried their live cargo out to see.
“What were you saying about big brother?” Spike asked after both he and his former captor were dumped into a holding cell.
“Shut up.”
Title: Fun times
Characters: Jazz, Cliffjumper
Rating: K+
T-Series: Generation 1
Summary: It’s storytelling-time, and every interested bot can tell whatever falsehood he likes - as long as it’s entertaining and totally plausible.
Prompt #6 A character telling a story/fairytale.
“So there I stood, watching the countdown continue, no time to loose. I randomly picked a wire and with my trusty clippers cut.
“The timer shut down, and the count-down wad deactivated.”
“Load o’ hogwash,” Jazz muttered from behind his energon ration.
Cliffjumper turned to Jazz. “Are any of the times you saved the day unclassified?”
“Nope.” Jazz put down his cube. “Fact is, I’m not supposed to know ‘bout the time Soundwave download a stasis-virus.”
Cliffjumper wasn’t the only mech who’s vents stopped working. “Soundwave downloaded a virus?” Cliffjumper squeaked.
“A stasis-inducing one.” Jazz nodded knowingly.
“There’s no such thing.” Cliffjumper insisted.
“Got another reason Sounder’s would let me hack the computer and download everything?”
“No, tell us Jazz.” Hot Rod urged, no longer interested in telling his tall-tale.
“See, Ol sounders knows a lot ‘bout maintaining proper firewalls, but he’s more power than finesse.” Jazz began telling a highly edited version of the one time Soundwave had been incapacitated. “What I had to do was infect one of his cassettes with a dormant version of the virus and wait for it to infiltrate them all - took a little bit o’ time, but when it works, it works.”
Characters: Grapple
Rating: Teen
T-Series: Generation 1
Summary: Disposing and identifying the dead is a task no one wants - some mechs take the time to harvest parts that will save lives.
Prompt #1 An unsolved mystery
“Who were you?” Grapple asked.
The still, grey mech gave no answer.
Grapple was not bothered by the lack of response. Indeed, he would have been more astounded if the deactivated had spoken.
“Processor’s been fried,” he examined the melted cranial unit. “Distinctive features eradicated.”
In earlier times, medics did not need to ransack the recently deceased. Now though, with the war leaving hordes of dead and dying mechs in need of rare-parts, ransacking was the fastest way of finding usable parts.
“I am sorry,” Grapple removed intact inner parts - any piece of useable equipment might make the difference between deactivation and repair for the critically injured - before the remnants of the slagged frame was smelted. “Your identity will forever be known only to Primus.”
Stepping into the wash-racks, Grapple found himself no longer bothered by desecrating the dead - and that realization troubled him. “How much more can I see before I am a threat to my friends?” He refused to let the question and fear it raised to take hold.
Dion’s gray frame, stripped of all identity, removed of all pumps, tanks, equipment, tools and unslagged lines, slid into the smelting pit, along with dozens of other forgotten individuals, once vibrant with life.
Title: Beauty is more than skin deep
Characters: Sunstreaker, Hoist
Rating: K+
T-Series: Generation 1
Summary: There are a few health related-issues that Sunstreaker will never suffer from, due to his obsessive-compulsive need to maintain his appearance. Like gummed up gears.
Prompt #2 Stripping back the layers
“Is all this really necessary, Sunstreaker?”
Sunstreaker dipped the corner of a cleaning rag into the paint stripping solvent. “Yes.”
Hoist suffered the indignity of having someone else help him remove the last bit of stubborn color he could not reach on his own. “A visit to the wash-racks would have removed all the grime just fine.”
“Keep scrubbing.” Sunstreaker ordered, meticulously cleaning down to the protometal.
“All I really needed was a regular touch-up.” Hoist complied even while he didn’t quite complain. “Nobody else would care if I simply filled in the scratch before painting over.”
“New paint sticks best to bare metal.” The dirty, wet rag dropped to the ground. Sunstreaker took one long step back, pleased with the results. “Now we can proceed.”
Hoist tossed his twelfth cleaning cloth into the corner. “Good.” He was a bit surprised at how smoothly his movements felt.
“Didn’t you know, Hoist, that piling on additional layers of paint can inhibit movement?” Sunstreaker asked. “Even Ratchet knows not to let paint-build up get into servos and joints - and twelve overlapping coats is putting it on pretty thick.”
Title: Subjective outlook
Characters: Perceptor, Carly
Rating: K+
T-Series: Generation 1
Summary: There are many ways to look into the past. Perceptor invites Carly to a dig so she can experience one way through looking at long-buried evidence of people’s passing.
Prompt #3 An Archaeological Dig
“Pass me the brush.” Red fingers were outstretched.
“Sure, Perceptor.” Carly Witwicky handed over the requested tool. “Did you find something interesting?”
“Indubitably.” The Autobot scientist replied, carefully sweeping every speck of dust, every grain of rock, into a bucket for later analysis.
“Any hypothesis?” Carly asked, watching as something petrified was slowly exposed to the sun for the first time in a hundred years.
“Just one.” Perceptor focused his lens on the microscopic lines. “Your world is young.”
Carly blinked. “You can tell that by annualizing a fossilized tree?”
“My dear, the evidence is all around you - it’s even evident in currently thriving cultures.” Perceptor picked the bucket full of gravel up. “The pace of change today might be faster than all of your yesterdays, but, in my experience, any society that is stagnant and refuses to change, disintegrates in less than a generation.” The bucket of featureless rock fragments was shaken. “This site was a thriving metropolis of its time, before it was buried under a lava-flow.”
Carly shook her head. "Only you bots would encourage us humans to really examine the possibility of a young earth."
Title: A medic’s work is never done.
Characters: Hook, Astrotrain
Rating: K
T-Series: Generation 1
Summary: A medic’s work is never done - Hook wishes other mechs would learn to do basic maintenance instead of always demanding he fix their problems. Oh well, the injured can (should) learn to deal with minor issues on their own.
Prompt #4 Random Phrase Generator: (Troubled Keel)
“I don’t like this.” Hook slid underneath to more closely examine the keel of the shuttlecraft. “I really don’t like this.”
“What’s wrong?” Astrotrain demanded to know. “Can’t you just bang the dent out?”
“I could - if you wanted to forever remain in your shuttle form.”
“The reason I called you down here is because I AM STUCK!”
“Then let me do my job to find the underlying problem.”
Silence returned to the docking bay. It might have been total silence, except for the hiss of cooling engines, the constant drip-drip of water from a stalactite (who’s water source a.k.a. leak, the Constructicons hadn’t found), and occasional mutterings from the green medic as he examined the shielded underbelly of the triple changer.
At last! “Found the problem.”
Astrotrain yelped as something pinched, tugged, then released. He jumped back from the reaching servos, rubbing the strained leg-cable. “Give a mech some warning next time.”
Hook wiped his hands clean. “You’re fixed.” He departed for the Decepticon med-bay.
Astrotrain looked down, somewhat astonished to see hands and feet instead of his space-faring alt-mode. From his standing position, he took a huge step -
And promptly fell to the ground.
“Stupid gyroscope.” The triple-changer cursed, using the wall to pull himself upright once again. “Why else would a troubled keel interfere with my balance?” He had to use the wall as support, walking to his quarters - not that his hugging one side made him stand out from the rest of the scurrying crew.
Title: Tables turned
Characters: Spike Witwicky, Doctor Arkeville
Rating: K
T-Series: Generation 1
Summary: The problem with making a deal with someone more powerful, is that sometimes, you hold none of the cards, and are completely at his tender mercy.
Prompt #5 Surveillance Cameras
“Careful - big brother is watching.” Dr. Arkeville warned his hostage.
“Why do you care?” Spike asked, testing the duct-tape bonds.
“I don’t.” Dr. Arkeville was shocked by the question. “I just hate being observed by my enemies.”
“You do know the bots will find me?”
“Before or after I contact Megatron?” The man scientist smiled.
Spike found his mouth drop open in horror as one, then two cameras dropped from their perch.
“Good to see you, Laserbeak, Buzzsaw.” Arkeville praised the cassettes. “Tell your master I come with a bargaining chip.”
Instead of acknowledging the order, the winged cassettes transformed and grabbed the two humans.
“Wait! No!” Arkeville screamed at the mistreatment. “I bring a hostage - I am notone myself!”
The metal birds only squawked as they carried their live cargo out to see.
“What were you saying about big brother?” Spike asked after both he and his former captor were dumped into a holding cell.
“Shut up.”
Title: Fun times
Characters: Jazz, Cliffjumper
Rating: K+
T-Series: Generation 1
Summary: It’s storytelling-time, and every interested bot can tell whatever falsehood he likes - as long as it’s entertaining and totally plausible.
Prompt #6 A character telling a story/fairytale.
“So there I stood, watching the countdown continue, no time to loose. I randomly picked a wire and with my trusty clippers cut.
“The timer shut down, and the count-down wad deactivated.”
“Load o’ hogwash,” Jazz muttered from behind his energon ration.
Cliffjumper turned to Jazz. “Are any of the times you saved the day unclassified?”
“Nope.” Jazz put down his cube. “Fact is, I’m not supposed to know ‘bout the time Soundwave download a stasis-virus.”
Cliffjumper wasn’t the only mech who’s vents stopped working. “Soundwave downloaded a virus?” Cliffjumper squeaked.
“A stasis-inducing one.” Jazz nodded knowingly.
“There’s no such thing.” Cliffjumper insisted.
“Got another reason Sounder’s would let me hack the computer and download everything?”
“No, tell us Jazz.” Hot Rod urged, no longer interested in telling his tall-tale.
“See, Ol sounders knows a lot ‘bout maintaining proper firewalls, but he’s more power than finesse.” Jazz began telling a highly edited version of the one time Soundwave had been incapacitated. “What I had to do was infect one of his cassettes with a dormant version of the virus and wait for it to infiltrate them all - took a little bit o’ time, but when it works, it works.”