Six old prompts
Title: Discoveries
Warnings/content advice: None
Rating: K+
Continuity: Generation 1
Characters: Perceptor, Groove
Old Prompt: December 13th 2014 #1 The First Snow
Insulated from the strut-chilling, heat leaching vacuum of space, Perceptor took no notice of the dropping temperatures when he want outside to collect native ore deposits from long abandoned mines in the mountainous regions surrounding the buried Autobus Research Keep. He did pause momentarily to switch on a portable torch when the fading light failed to properly illuminate the trace-metal bearing rocks half-buried beneath decomposing organic litter cast off from two-hundred year old oak tress and other deciduous vegetation of the forest.
“Pass me my scanner,” Perceptor requested of his traveling companion, head and shoulders deep with the freshly evacuated hole. “Groove?”
The scientist pulled himself upright and cast about, cautiously looking for the Protectobot who’d volunteered to assist in the analysis of the bedrock and loose stones. “Groove?”
What Perceptor had first mistaken for a lightly ash-dusted tree trunk shook itself, dislodging the solid white precipitation that clung to his armor - and was beginning to clump in the wind drifts.
“This is pretty, Percy. What is it?” Grove held out his hand, filled with the white flakes.
Ignoring the shorted version of his name, Perceptor shifted forms so that he might get a closer, more detailed look at the fallen cloud particles. “Wow.”
Groove waited. As still as a carved statue, he waited. The microscopic scientist in his hands moved on from one tiny sample to another, to yet more examples.
“Fascinating.” Perceptor finally spoke up. “Frozen water droplets - “ he began to speak of the mathematical patters and distinctive designs each tiny flake represented when his lecture was cut short.
“So this is what a real snowflake looks like. I like them - hey, do you think Carley and Spike would be willing to show us how to make snow angels?”
Title: Journeying into the unknown
Warnings/content advice: None
Rating: K
Continuity: Generation 1
Characters: Powerglide
Old Prompt: December 13th 2014 #2 A chill wind over an empty landscape.
Powerglide flew over the sandy desert the humans dubbed ‘the Sahara’. “I don’t see anyone, Prime.”
“Continue searching, Powerglide - someone requested a rescue.”
The communications link stayed open, keeping the searching in continuous contact with the ARK.
The flying red Autobot continued examining the area, looking for humans in trouble. “The desert is still empty.” Powerglide reported in, thirty-six minutes later. “Beginning to look a bit odd, though.
“Odd?” Jazz broke in. “Odd in what way?”
Still high in the air, the two-seater plane tried to describe the ground from impressions he was picking up. “The sand is loosing its color, and is being covered by something else - my scanners can’t identify it.”
“Sand doesn’t change color,” Ratchet interjected. “Nor does it grow pale - check your optics.”
“I am serious!” Powerglide roared. “It’s becoming white. And beginning to glisten.”
Silence from the Ark. Prepared to shout over any objections to his observations, Powerglide started to become uneasy.
“What’s the ambient temperature?” Prime asked after what seemed to be an intolerable length of time had passed. In reality, only three minutes fifty-nine seconds of silence had followed the last exchange.
“Well-below freezing.” Powerglide reported, wondering. “Should I be on the look out for blizzards?”
“Yep.” Jazz added. “Stay sharp - we don’t need to be searching the Sahara for you and any lost humans.”
Title: Single Rebuke
Warnings/content advice: None
Rating: K+
Continuity: Generation 1
Characters: Dead End, Reflector
Disclaimer: Rose0mary does NOT own
Prompt: December 13th 2014 #3 Setting: A frozen lake, with a single crack in the ice.
“DON’T MOVE!”
Dead-end froze, automatically. “What’s wrong?” he wanted to call out, dared not - he had seen the solid-looking surface begin to crack, even as he reached the halfway point on the lake.
Sliding on his feet, Reflector scrambled closer to the separating halves. “Now this isn’t something you see every day.” He separated into his three components.
Dead-end slowly released the air his vents had retained when the ominous CRACK reached his audios. A photo-op, he thought disgustedly. “Hey, Viewfinder.” He took a cautions step backward, wanting to get off this floating ice rink before the growing crack sent him into the near-freezing waters. “Nobody’s getting paid for those images.”
“On the contrary.” Reflector combined back into his larger form. “The humans pay handsomely for ‘death-defying’ exposures like this one.”
“They pay in energon?” Dead-end asked, interested despite himself.
“Well, no - but the publicity is good for Decepticon image and interests.”
Dead End continued to retreat. “Should have known this short-cut was a disaster waiting to happen.”
Still examining the crack, Reflector smirked. “Motormaster takes bigger risks on the ice-roads in Alaska.”
“Swindle’s got bad intel - Motormaster ain’t hauling human cargo in that wasteland, nor does he let humans drive him.”
Title: No Armistice wanted
Warnings/content advice: None
Rating: K
Continuity: Generation 1
Characters: Ravage, Steeljaw
Disclaimer: Rose0mary does NOT own
Prompt: December 13th 2014 #4 scenario: trapped in an isolated location during a blizzard.
Ravage hissed at Steeljaw.
Steeljaw kept his ears pinned, flat to his head.
The two felines circled each other, hesitant to attack, reluctant to continue the fight that left them temporarily separated from their family and everything familiar.
“We could try a truce,” Steeljaw offered. He rapidly backed away from the sharp claws that threatened to rip his face to shreds. “Or go to our own separate walls and pray this blizzard doesn’t trap us all winter long.”
Tail thrashing angrily from side to side, Ravage chanced a look at the tiny access, which led to this wind-sheltered cavern. It was completely filled with snow - and from the howling winds still screaming their fury outside, this story was just beginning.
Steeljaw took the lack of metal teeth in his hide as a good sign. He hunkered down along the rocks midway between the blocked entrance and the rear of their hidey-hole.
Ravage settled down by the opposite wall, on top of a jutting boulder.
They sat in to wait out the storm. One was confident of a rescue attempt. The other determined to escape at the earliest opportunity. Neither looked away from his opponent. Neither one allowed himself to slip into recharge.
Meanwhile, just outside, the snow continued to blow, changing the landscape and instantly disorient everyone who stepped out of shelter.
It would be a very long wait.
Title: Recovery time
Warnings/content advice: None
Rating: K+
Continuity: Generation 1
Characters: unnamed (implied to be Optimus and Megatron)
Prompt: December 13th 2014 #5 Setting: Just after an avalanche.
From afar, the blanket of fallen snow looked pristine and undisturbed.
Up close, it became more obvious that this wasn’t a normal snowfall that covered the land.
Boulders were scattered everywhere.
Uprooted trees dotted the landscape - some were upside down, others lay on their sides. Most of the trees had been reduced to bare trunks, their limbs broken off, the trunks wrecked, branches torn off and scattered everywhere.
Here and there, in the midst of the avalanche’s path, splotches of bright color slowly popped up. Red, gray, yellow, green, purple, blue and black, were wiggling and growing bigger as the owners and wearers dug their way up to the surface.
“I suggest,” spoke one huffing and puffing red-and-blue figure as he reached over to help an encased silver-and-black figure out of his collapsing tunnel. “That we keep our fights away from mountainous zones the humans have labeled as extremely dangerous.”
“Coward,” sneered the assisted one once he got his feet solidly underfoot again. “I fight in all terrains - even the most treacherous ones.”
Title: Well-deserved lecture
Warnings/content advice: Mild transformer cuss
Rating: Teens
Continuity: Generation 1
Characters: Ratchet, Fireflight
Prompt: December 13th 2014 #6 Icicles.
“Will you never learn?” Ratchet’s grumbles were peppered with clanging metal. “Water is not to be played with. Ever. In any form or state of matter.”
Fireflight winced as his wing shook. The ice on it started to shatter, then break off in clumps.
“Staying up so long the joints lock up, I can understand.” Rachet continued to voice his dismay at the icicles clinging to Fireflight’s frame. “But deliberately diving into a hailstorm to watch the ice form?”
The last of the frozen tendrils of water fell off. Fireflight remained seated, knowing a lecture was coming.
“Fireflight, you’re old enough to know better.” Ratchet shook his head. “Fraggit, you’re experienced enough to recognize the warning signs.”
Warnings/content advice: None
Rating: K+
Continuity: Generation 1
Characters: Perceptor, Groove
Old Prompt: December 13th 2014 #1 The First Snow
Insulated from the strut-chilling, heat leaching vacuum of space, Perceptor took no notice of the dropping temperatures when he want outside to collect native ore deposits from long abandoned mines in the mountainous regions surrounding the buried Autobus Research Keep. He did pause momentarily to switch on a portable torch when the fading light failed to properly illuminate the trace-metal bearing rocks half-buried beneath decomposing organic litter cast off from two-hundred year old oak tress and other deciduous vegetation of the forest.
“Pass me my scanner,” Perceptor requested of his traveling companion, head and shoulders deep with the freshly evacuated hole. “Groove?”
The scientist pulled himself upright and cast about, cautiously looking for the Protectobot who’d volunteered to assist in the analysis of the bedrock and loose stones. “Groove?”
What Perceptor had first mistaken for a lightly ash-dusted tree trunk shook itself, dislodging the solid white precipitation that clung to his armor - and was beginning to clump in the wind drifts.
“This is pretty, Percy. What is it?” Grove held out his hand, filled with the white flakes.
Ignoring the shorted version of his name, Perceptor shifted forms so that he might get a closer, more detailed look at the fallen cloud particles. “Wow.”
Groove waited. As still as a carved statue, he waited. The microscopic scientist in his hands moved on from one tiny sample to another, to yet more examples.
“Fascinating.” Perceptor finally spoke up. “Frozen water droplets - “ he began to speak of the mathematical patters and distinctive designs each tiny flake represented when his lecture was cut short.
“So this is what a real snowflake looks like. I like them - hey, do you think Carley and Spike would be willing to show us how to make snow angels?”
Title: Journeying into the unknown
Warnings/content advice: None
Rating: K
Continuity: Generation 1
Characters: Powerglide
Old Prompt: December 13th 2014 #2 A chill wind over an empty landscape.
Powerglide flew over the sandy desert the humans dubbed ‘the Sahara’. “I don’t see anyone, Prime.”
“Continue searching, Powerglide - someone requested a rescue.”
The communications link stayed open, keeping the searching in continuous contact with the ARK.
The flying red Autobot continued examining the area, looking for humans in trouble. “The desert is still empty.” Powerglide reported in, thirty-six minutes later. “Beginning to look a bit odd, though.
“Odd?” Jazz broke in. “Odd in what way?”
Still high in the air, the two-seater plane tried to describe the ground from impressions he was picking up. “The sand is loosing its color, and is being covered by something else - my scanners can’t identify it.”
“Sand doesn’t change color,” Ratchet interjected. “Nor does it grow pale - check your optics.”
“I am serious!” Powerglide roared. “It’s becoming white. And beginning to glisten.”
Silence from the Ark. Prepared to shout over any objections to his observations, Powerglide started to become uneasy.
“What’s the ambient temperature?” Prime asked after what seemed to be an intolerable length of time had passed. In reality, only three minutes fifty-nine seconds of silence had followed the last exchange.
“Well-below freezing.” Powerglide reported, wondering. “Should I be on the look out for blizzards?”
“Yep.” Jazz added. “Stay sharp - we don’t need to be searching the Sahara for you and any lost humans.”
Title: Single Rebuke
Warnings/content advice: None
Rating: K+
Continuity: Generation 1
Characters: Dead End, Reflector
Disclaimer: Rose0mary does NOT own
Prompt: December 13th 2014 #3 Setting: A frozen lake, with a single crack in the ice.
“DON’T MOVE!”
Dead-end froze, automatically. “What’s wrong?” he wanted to call out, dared not - he had seen the solid-looking surface begin to crack, even as he reached the halfway point on the lake.
Sliding on his feet, Reflector scrambled closer to the separating halves. “Now this isn’t something you see every day.” He separated into his three components.
Dead-end slowly released the air his vents had retained when the ominous CRACK reached his audios. A photo-op, he thought disgustedly. “Hey, Viewfinder.” He took a cautions step backward, wanting to get off this floating ice rink before the growing crack sent him into the near-freezing waters. “Nobody’s getting paid for those images.”
“On the contrary.” Reflector combined back into his larger form. “The humans pay handsomely for ‘death-defying’ exposures like this one.”
“They pay in energon?” Dead-end asked, interested despite himself.
“Well, no - but the publicity is good for Decepticon image and interests.”
Dead End continued to retreat. “Should have known this short-cut was a disaster waiting to happen.”
Still examining the crack, Reflector smirked. “Motormaster takes bigger risks on the ice-roads in Alaska.”
“Swindle’s got bad intel - Motormaster ain’t hauling human cargo in that wasteland, nor does he let humans drive him.”
Title: No Armistice wanted
Warnings/content advice: None
Rating: K
Continuity: Generation 1
Characters: Ravage, Steeljaw
Disclaimer: Rose0mary does NOT own
Prompt: December 13th 2014 #4 scenario: trapped in an isolated location during a blizzard.
Ravage hissed at Steeljaw.
Steeljaw kept his ears pinned, flat to his head.
The two felines circled each other, hesitant to attack, reluctant to continue the fight that left them temporarily separated from their family and everything familiar.
“We could try a truce,” Steeljaw offered. He rapidly backed away from the sharp claws that threatened to rip his face to shreds. “Or go to our own separate walls and pray this blizzard doesn’t trap us all winter long.”
Tail thrashing angrily from side to side, Ravage chanced a look at the tiny access, which led to this wind-sheltered cavern. It was completely filled with snow - and from the howling winds still screaming their fury outside, this story was just beginning.
Steeljaw took the lack of metal teeth in his hide as a good sign. He hunkered down along the rocks midway between the blocked entrance and the rear of their hidey-hole.
Ravage settled down by the opposite wall, on top of a jutting boulder.
They sat in to wait out the storm. One was confident of a rescue attempt. The other determined to escape at the earliest opportunity. Neither looked away from his opponent. Neither one allowed himself to slip into recharge.
Meanwhile, just outside, the snow continued to blow, changing the landscape and instantly disorient everyone who stepped out of shelter.
It would be a very long wait.
Title: Recovery time
Warnings/content advice: None
Rating: K+
Continuity: Generation 1
Characters: unnamed (implied to be Optimus and Megatron)
Prompt: December 13th 2014 #5 Setting: Just after an avalanche.
From afar, the blanket of fallen snow looked pristine and undisturbed.
Up close, it became more obvious that this wasn’t a normal snowfall that covered the land.
Boulders were scattered everywhere.
Uprooted trees dotted the landscape - some were upside down, others lay on their sides. Most of the trees had been reduced to bare trunks, their limbs broken off, the trunks wrecked, branches torn off and scattered everywhere.
Here and there, in the midst of the avalanche’s path, splotches of bright color slowly popped up. Red, gray, yellow, green, purple, blue and black, were wiggling and growing bigger as the owners and wearers dug their way up to the surface.
“I suggest,” spoke one huffing and puffing red-and-blue figure as he reached over to help an encased silver-and-black figure out of his collapsing tunnel. “That we keep our fights away from mountainous zones the humans have labeled as extremely dangerous.”
“Coward,” sneered the assisted one once he got his feet solidly underfoot again. “I fight in all terrains - even the most treacherous ones.”
Title: Well-deserved lecture
Warnings/content advice: Mild transformer cuss
Rating: Teens
Continuity: Generation 1
Characters: Ratchet, Fireflight
Prompt: December 13th 2014 #6 Icicles.
“Will you never learn?” Ratchet’s grumbles were peppered with clanging metal. “Water is not to be played with. Ever. In any form or state of matter.”
Fireflight winced as his wing shook. The ice on it started to shatter, then break off in clumps.
“Staying up so long the joints lock up, I can understand.” Rachet continued to voice his dismay at the icicles clinging to Fireflight’s frame. “But deliberately diving into a hailstorm to watch the ice form?”
The last of the frozen tendrils of water fell off. Fireflight remained seated, knowing a lecture was coming.
“Fireflight, you’re old enough to know better.” Ratchet shook his head. “Fraggit, you’re experienced enough to recognize the warning signs.”