Mix-mash
Title: Home Brew
T-Verse: Generation 1
Rating: K+/Teens
Characters: Smokescreen, Wheeljack
Summary: Creating Moonshine is not an exact processes - but there are some finicky steps that have to be followed precisely.
Prompt: Wheeljack/Smokescreen - Testing 1, 2, 3
“Think this batch is the key?” Earfins flashed, revealing the speaker’s uncertainty.
A light-blue servo tapped the table in a rhythmic manner. “Won’t know until we try it.” He too was anxious, better at hiding it from casual observers.
White servos pinned the blue ones, ending the tapping. “Relax” Wheeljack had to remind himself too.
“Not usually this impatient.” Smokescreen withdrew his arm. “When will the home brew moonshine be ready?”
A red helm tilted thoughtfully. “When it stops bubbling - oh good.”
Two cubes were carefully placed beneath the spigot. “Half a ration, you think?”
“Better only a third - we’re aiming for something with more potency than standard high grade.”
The energon containers were filled only partway. “Cheers.”
Title: Practice Run
T-Verse: Generation 1
Rating: K+
Characters: Firestar, Tracks, OC’s
Summary: The no-rule street survival behind official, sponsored activities helped some adapt to guerrilla warfare - far in the future, long after midnight rendezvous stopped being popular.
Prompt: Firestar/Tracks - Illegal Moon race
“You sure we should be here?” Firestar asked.
TrailCutter continued leading the way on the not-at-all-illuminated, uneven pathway. “You want to race the best, don’t you?”
“Well, I thought Blurr is the best.” Firestar admitted, weaving between two crevices.
“Blurr won’t touch unsponsored midorn races,” RedZone scoffed from behind the protesting femme.
Firestar saw pinpricks of light up ahead - more headlights than she expected. “How many are racing tonight?”
Eclecticscreen flashed a gleaming smile. “All of us.” They were the last to arrive.
A tall, indeterminate form, stood up. “Everyone’s assembled? Then let’s be off!” He jumped up, using t hrusters to bounce over unseen obstacles.
Deepgap and several dozen other revved their engines in response. Each and every Cybertronian transformed, scattered. Some used wrist launchers, jet-packs, thrusters, repulsors, and anti-gravity devices to cut over barriers and twisting side paths. The rest were stuck on the ground.
Firestar drove hard to catch up. “Hey! Watch it!” Cried out a mech she almost plowed into.
“You’re in my way.” Firestar refused to apologize. Up ahead, the path split, she paused at the junction, trying to decide which way would be faster.
“Dead-ends, both of them.”
“I’ll take my chances, thank you very much.”
The mech did not hear her objections, just wrapped his arms around her chassis, and jumped over the wall. He released her upon landing on the other side. “You’re welcome.”
When the random encounter turned into a thrice-occurring happenstance, Firestar had had enough. “Who are you, and why are you following me?”
“Name’s Tracks - and you’re new. Thought I’d give you a hand up.”
“Don’t need any assist.” Firestar brushed by the infuriating mech. “Go find another femme to harass.”
Tracks didn’t. He kept his distance, and did not lay another servo on her, but he kept following the newcomer. “First moon-race, eh?”
“What makes you say that?” Firstar transformed into robot mode to scale the cliff bisecting the unpaved (but widened and smoothed by thousands of wheels and transports) road.
“No flying modes.” Tracks waited for her to reach the other side before launching himself across the gap. “Only first-timers don’t have some sort of modification to get over barriers like that one.”
“Not doing this again.” Firestar huffed. “Whoever heard of a race where even the watchers and viewers participate?”
“The illegal ones.” Tracks admitted. “Sitting around the start/end posts a big sign that even cross optic enforcers notice.”
“No. Really! I would never have guessed.”
“Easy up on the sarcasm, sweet spark - you really are new at this underground racing aren’t you?”
Title: Private letters
T-Verse: Generation 1
Rating: K
Characters: Red Alert, Prowl
Summary: There is a system in place to keep Private communication private - at least, between these two.
Prompt #1 “Sugar Report”
When Red Alert received an inconspicuous data-pad whose contents he could not access, he took it to Prowl.
“Why is my security clearance not high enough?” The security director demanded to know. “I should have access to every bit of information that enters or leaves the base!”
Prowl took the datapad, entered his top-level security code, placed everything else to the side. “It’s for Optimus - his otics only.” The second-in-command stood up.
Red Alert blocked his path.
The data-pad ended up on Red’s servos. “A private letter from Elita to her bonded - nothing else.” Prowl placed his hands on Red’s shoulders, manhandled the bot until he faced prime’s office. “Go deliver it to Optimus.”
Grudgingly, the security officer did - but only because a quick glance had show Prowl’s codes only revealed the recipient (Optimus), and sender (Elita), and no glyphs for title or rank.
Title: Rescue-craft
T-Verse: Generation 1
Rating: K+
Characters: Skyfire, OC’s
Summary: Skyfire’s eyes were opened to the possibility of organic life forms long before he joined Iacon’s science academy.
Prompt #2 A crippled space ship
“Look at that!” Steelknife shoved his comrades away from the transparasteel. “How are we supposed to repair the shuttle? They’d be better off scrapping it and buying a new one.”
Ironcraft shook his head. “That shuttle’s a derelict - it’s useless, not worth the metal to haul it to the smelter pits.”
“Wait, so there’s a space-dock worse off?” Steelknife snuck a longer glance at the wrecked shuttle. “What happened? Someone bring back a scraplet or something?”
Their ship answered. “The Xantainum was carrying a bunch of refugees and pilgrims when it encountered what she describas as a rouge asteroid field.”
“You lost me, Skyfire.” Ironocraft went to check on the tools and fabricated metal strips. “How can an asteroid field go rouge? They all encircle a planetoid, gas-giant, or local star.”
“Not this one,” Skyfire’s dry tones did nothing to dispel the belief in the listening crew. “Xantainum insists this bunch of asteroids acted like a fleet of short-range attack ships, determined to wipe out Xantainum and passengers.” Skyfire grew pensive. “Except for the lack of metal, and electronic synapses, Xantainum and crew are convinced sentient life was piloting the rocky-craft.”
Steelknife and Ironcraft chuckled. “You mean to say, organic creatures managed to threaten one of us?” They broke into laughter. “Every mecha knows only mechanical beings are alive, and capable of higher thought.”
Skyfire fell silent, letting the crew of mechanics think what they would. Xantainum knew what he encountered, and the ground-shuttle transport designed to bring relief supplies to the dead-in-space ship, had viewed the framgment memory clips.
There was organic life out there - and some of it had proven hostile to Cybertronians.
Title: Rise up!
T-Verse: Generation 1
Rating: Teen
Characters: Shockwave, various others (OC’s included)
Summary: At first, the vast majority of Cybertrons are indifferent to the coming conflict - except when one side or another uses them as an example.
Prompt #3 Scenario - A Prisoner Exchange
Onslaught, Oliskick, Depthcharge, and several dozen more Decepticons rounded up and herded several shifts of dock-workers to an abandoned depot.
Once inside, the unarmed prisoners were allowed to mingle - so long as they remained huddled on the main floor, away from any openings and the stairwells.
“What do you want?” A large silver mech stood tall, bright optics seeking out the leader of this rebel group.
Shockwave strolled forward, leaving the shadows that hid his presence. “I only want my liege returned.”
The weaponless prisoners grew alarmed, did not break into outright screaming fits. The spokesmech looked square into the one flame-red optic of the one who ordered their capture. “What does that have to do with us?”
While he spoke, the armed dissenters were moving around, giving themselves a clear shot into the center of the room. One non-descript mech joined Shockwave up on the higher level.
“You’ll find out.” Shockwave withdrew his pincher-like hand and fired. Two dockworkers fell down, frames graying. Another collapsed, his leg shattered, rapidly loosing vital energon from a severed line. “Duodisplay?”
A minicon dropped to the floor. He transformed into a two-way vid-sceen.
“Greetings, Sentinel Prime. You have someone who belongs to me. Release him, and these will go free.”
The mech on the screen did not meet the gaze of Shockwave. “I am not releasing any rabble rousers to you or any of your ilk.”
“A pity.” Another shot fired, four more helpless captives fell to the ground, deactivated or heading that way. “Release Megatron.”
“Why should I allow an insurrectionist to go free?”
A third shot, two more gray frames littered the ground. “Is it Autobot policy that no innocent die?”
“We don not negotiate with terrorists!” Sentienl Prime cut the link.
Instead of shooting and maiming the remaining captives, Shockwave turned to face the nondescript grey mech. “Observation?”
Addressed, the mech replied, “Megatron, held in Vos catacombs. Retrieval - will devastate Vos.”
“So be it.” Shockwave walked back to the shadow wall he’d emerged from. “No witnesses.”
Onslaught and the others gleefully fired into the crowd. Unnoticed by the panicking, dying neutrals, the minicon was picked up by the non-descript soldier, who then followed Shockwave.
“Dion!” A dirt encrusted femme shouted when the earlier spokesmech was shot in the chassis.
“Save yourself and Orion.” The mortally wounded mech commanded, struggling to remain upright.
The massacre of an entire city’s dock-working class had not yet been complete when distant air-raid sirens begain wailing. Some of the cons retreated, figuring enough of the prisoners had been shot, and would not survive. Others turn and ran, still shooting into moving frames, even as they made their way to abandoned sewer lines. Most of the rest waited until they actually saw enforcers and medics begin to arrive before heading for the dried acid channels and other escape hatches.
Roadbuster, Tailcutter, Stopgap, Twincast, Makeshift, Knockout, and others alerted to the distress of an entire city’s docking crew by their absence (and Sentiel’s primary bodyguard’s recognition of one or two of the terrified workers through the vidscreen), rushed to help the wounded workers - those they could still save.
Most of the injured were beyond help - a handful of the fallen were found to have only minor non-life threatening wounds, but the majority of them, had been deactivated before relief efforts arrived to help.
“Dion?” A femme suffering from energon deprivation struggled in the arms of the medical personal. “Where’s Dion?”
“Arial,” a large, acid-blistered and freshly scarred mech actively fought Stopgap, “Arial, he’s gone.”
“Orion.” Arial slipped into stasis lock.
Halfway across the world, Vos was enflames. The chemical fire, released as a distraction, burned hot and bright.
The intense temperatures melted the frames of most rescue teams -only Sunstorm and Inferno could face the heat, as others sought to evacuate the city of fliers before the flames reached the business and creativity district.
T-Verse: Generation 1
Rating: K+/Teens
Characters: Smokescreen, Wheeljack
Summary: Creating Moonshine is not an exact processes - but there are some finicky steps that have to be followed precisely.
Prompt: Wheeljack/Smokescreen - Testing 1, 2, 3
“Think this batch is the key?” Earfins flashed, revealing the speaker’s uncertainty.
A light-blue servo tapped the table in a rhythmic manner. “Won’t know until we try it.” He too was anxious, better at hiding it from casual observers.
White servos pinned the blue ones, ending the tapping. “Relax” Wheeljack had to remind himself too.
“Not usually this impatient.” Smokescreen withdrew his arm. “When will the home brew moonshine be ready?”
A red helm tilted thoughtfully. “When it stops bubbling - oh good.”
Two cubes were carefully placed beneath the spigot. “Half a ration, you think?”
“Better only a third - we’re aiming for something with more potency than standard high grade.”
The energon containers were filled only partway. “Cheers.”
Title: Practice Run
T-Verse: Generation 1
Rating: K+
Characters: Firestar, Tracks, OC’s
Summary: The no-rule street survival behind official, sponsored activities helped some adapt to guerrilla warfare - far in the future, long after midnight rendezvous stopped being popular.
Prompt: Firestar/Tracks - Illegal Moon race
“You sure we should be here?” Firestar asked.
TrailCutter continued leading the way on the not-at-all-illuminated, uneven pathway. “You want to race the best, don’t you?”
“Well, I thought Blurr is the best.” Firestar admitted, weaving between two crevices.
“Blurr won’t touch unsponsored midorn races,” RedZone scoffed from behind the protesting femme.
Firestar saw pinpricks of light up ahead - more headlights than she expected. “How many are racing tonight?”
Eclecticscreen flashed a gleaming smile. “All of us.” They were the last to arrive.
A tall, indeterminate form, stood up. “Everyone’s assembled? Then let’s be off!” He jumped up, using t hrusters to bounce over unseen obstacles.
Deepgap and several dozen other revved their engines in response. Each and every Cybertronian transformed, scattered. Some used wrist launchers, jet-packs, thrusters, repulsors, and anti-gravity devices to cut over barriers and twisting side paths. The rest were stuck on the ground.
Firestar drove hard to catch up. “Hey! Watch it!” Cried out a mech she almost plowed into.
“You’re in my way.” Firestar refused to apologize. Up ahead, the path split, she paused at the junction, trying to decide which way would be faster.
“Dead-ends, both of them.”
“I’ll take my chances, thank you very much.”
The mech did not hear her objections, just wrapped his arms around her chassis, and jumped over the wall. He released her upon landing on the other side. “You’re welcome.”
When the random encounter turned into a thrice-occurring happenstance, Firestar had had enough. “Who are you, and why are you following me?”
“Name’s Tracks - and you’re new. Thought I’d give you a hand up.”
“Don’t need any assist.” Firestar brushed by the infuriating mech. “Go find another femme to harass.”
Tracks didn’t. He kept his distance, and did not lay another servo on her, but he kept following the newcomer. “First moon-race, eh?”
“What makes you say that?” Firstar transformed into robot mode to scale the cliff bisecting the unpaved (but widened and smoothed by thousands of wheels and transports) road.
“No flying modes.” Tracks waited for her to reach the other side before launching himself across the gap. “Only first-timers don’t have some sort of modification to get over barriers like that one.”
“Not doing this again.” Firestar huffed. “Whoever heard of a race where even the watchers and viewers participate?”
“The illegal ones.” Tracks admitted. “Sitting around the start/end posts a big sign that even cross optic enforcers notice.”
“No. Really! I would never have guessed.”
“Easy up on the sarcasm, sweet spark - you really are new at this underground racing aren’t you?”
Title: Private letters
T-Verse: Generation 1
Rating: K
Characters: Red Alert, Prowl
Summary: There is a system in place to keep Private communication private - at least, between these two.
Prompt #1 “Sugar Report”
When Red Alert received an inconspicuous data-pad whose contents he could not access, he took it to Prowl.
“Why is my security clearance not high enough?” The security director demanded to know. “I should have access to every bit of information that enters or leaves the base!”
Prowl took the datapad, entered his top-level security code, placed everything else to the side. “It’s for Optimus - his otics only.” The second-in-command stood up.
Red Alert blocked his path.
The data-pad ended up on Red’s servos. “A private letter from Elita to her bonded - nothing else.” Prowl placed his hands on Red’s shoulders, manhandled the bot until he faced prime’s office. “Go deliver it to Optimus.”
Grudgingly, the security officer did - but only because a quick glance had show Prowl’s codes only revealed the recipient (Optimus), and sender (Elita), and no glyphs for title or rank.
Title: Rescue-craft
T-Verse: Generation 1
Rating: K+
Characters: Skyfire, OC’s
Summary: Skyfire’s eyes were opened to the possibility of organic life forms long before he joined Iacon’s science academy.
Prompt #2 A crippled space ship
“Look at that!” Steelknife shoved his comrades away from the transparasteel. “How are we supposed to repair the shuttle? They’d be better off scrapping it and buying a new one.”
Ironcraft shook his head. “That shuttle’s a derelict - it’s useless, not worth the metal to haul it to the smelter pits.”
“Wait, so there’s a space-dock worse off?” Steelknife snuck a longer glance at the wrecked shuttle. “What happened? Someone bring back a scraplet or something?”
Their ship answered. “The Xantainum was carrying a bunch of refugees and pilgrims when it encountered what she describas as a rouge asteroid field.”
“You lost me, Skyfire.” Ironocraft went to check on the tools and fabricated metal strips. “How can an asteroid field go rouge? They all encircle a planetoid, gas-giant, or local star.”
“Not this one,” Skyfire’s dry tones did nothing to dispel the belief in the listening crew. “Xantainum insists this bunch of asteroids acted like a fleet of short-range attack ships, determined to wipe out Xantainum and passengers.” Skyfire grew pensive. “Except for the lack of metal, and electronic synapses, Xantainum and crew are convinced sentient life was piloting the rocky-craft.”
Steelknife and Ironcraft chuckled. “You mean to say, organic creatures managed to threaten one of us?” They broke into laughter. “Every mecha knows only mechanical beings are alive, and capable of higher thought.”
Skyfire fell silent, letting the crew of mechanics think what they would. Xantainum knew what he encountered, and the ground-shuttle transport designed to bring relief supplies to the dead-in-space ship, had viewed the framgment memory clips.
There was organic life out there - and some of it had proven hostile to Cybertronians.
Title: Rise up!
T-Verse: Generation 1
Rating: Teen
Characters: Shockwave, various others (OC’s included)
Summary: At first, the vast majority of Cybertrons are indifferent to the coming conflict - except when one side or another uses them as an example.
Prompt #3 Scenario - A Prisoner Exchange
Onslaught, Oliskick, Depthcharge, and several dozen more Decepticons rounded up and herded several shifts of dock-workers to an abandoned depot.
Once inside, the unarmed prisoners were allowed to mingle - so long as they remained huddled on the main floor, away from any openings and the stairwells.
“What do you want?” A large silver mech stood tall, bright optics seeking out the leader of this rebel group.
Shockwave strolled forward, leaving the shadows that hid his presence. “I only want my liege returned.”
The weaponless prisoners grew alarmed, did not break into outright screaming fits. The spokesmech looked square into the one flame-red optic of the one who ordered their capture. “What does that have to do with us?”
While he spoke, the armed dissenters were moving around, giving themselves a clear shot into the center of the room. One non-descript mech joined Shockwave up on the higher level.
“You’ll find out.” Shockwave withdrew his pincher-like hand and fired. Two dockworkers fell down, frames graying. Another collapsed, his leg shattered, rapidly loosing vital energon from a severed line. “Duodisplay?”
A minicon dropped to the floor. He transformed into a two-way vid-sceen.
“Greetings, Sentinel Prime. You have someone who belongs to me. Release him, and these will go free.”
The mech on the screen did not meet the gaze of Shockwave. “I am not releasing any rabble rousers to you or any of your ilk.”
“A pity.” Another shot fired, four more helpless captives fell to the ground, deactivated or heading that way. “Release Megatron.”
“Why should I allow an insurrectionist to go free?”
A third shot, two more gray frames littered the ground. “Is it Autobot policy that no innocent die?”
“We don not negotiate with terrorists!” Sentienl Prime cut the link.
Instead of shooting and maiming the remaining captives, Shockwave turned to face the nondescript grey mech. “Observation?”
Addressed, the mech replied, “Megatron, held in Vos catacombs. Retrieval - will devastate Vos.”
“So be it.” Shockwave walked back to the shadow wall he’d emerged from. “No witnesses.”
Onslaught and the others gleefully fired into the crowd. Unnoticed by the panicking, dying neutrals, the minicon was picked up by the non-descript soldier, who then followed Shockwave.
“Dion!” A dirt encrusted femme shouted when the earlier spokesmech was shot in the chassis.
“Save yourself and Orion.” The mortally wounded mech commanded, struggling to remain upright.
The massacre of an entire city’s dock-working class had not yet been complete when distant air-raid sirens begain wailing. Some of the cons retreated, figuring enough of the prisoners had been shot, and would not survive. Others turn and ran, still shooting into moving frames, even as they made their way to abandoned sewer lines. Most of the rest waited until they actually saw enforcers and medics begin to arrive before heading for the dried acid channels and other escape hatches.
Roadbuster, Tailcutter, Stopgap, Twincast, Makeshift, Knockout, and others alerted to the distress of an entire city’s docking crew by their absence (and Sentiel’s primary bodyguard’s recognition of one or two of the terrified workers through the vidscreen), rushed to help the wounded workers - those they could still save.
Most of the injured were beyond help - a handful of the fallen were found to have only minor non-life threatening wounds, but the majority of them, had been deactivated before relief efforts arrived to help.
“Dion?” A femme suffering from energon deprivation struggled in the arms of the medical personal. “Where’s Dion?”
“Arial,” a large, acid-blistered and freshly scarred mech actively fought Stopgap, “Arial, he’s gone.”
“Orion.” Arial slipped into stasis lock.
Halfway across the world, Vos was enflames. The chemical fire, released as a distraction, burned hot and bright.
The intense temperatures melted the frames of most rescue teams -only Sunstorm and Inferno could face the heat, as others sought to evacuate the city of fliers before the flames reached the business and creativity district.