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Opening Maneuvers
By : sefiru
Category: Transformers > G1 > AU/AR
Views: 3161 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I don't own Transformers and make no money on this.
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Opening Maneuvers
A Transformers fanfiction by Sefiru

Warnings: M/M, stickyfic, violence, angst
Rating: R, possibly higher
Pairing: OP/P
Disclaimer: I don’t own Transformers and I’m not getting paid for this.
GabrielC: Sometimes I wonder if Prowl was based on Spock … he’s so low-key he’s hard to write sometimes.
I have no excuse this time. Schedule slip at its finest, ladies and gentlemen ^^;
***
Chapter 4: In Which A Conspiracy Is Born
***
Prowl still woke when Prime did, though he no longer startled into panicked flight every time. Since his duty schedule usually began a good hour after Prime’s, he generally stayed in vehicle mode for a few minutes after Prime left. Today, when he downloaded his schedule from the network, he found it empty except for two words: day off. Thanks to his lexicon file, he knew what this meant, but he had no idea what behaviors and activities went with it. So he fell back on his usual solution for such problems: observe what the other Autobots were doing.
He found Sideswipe and Ironhide in the mess hall with their morning energon, discussing their plans for the day. Prowl collected his ration and joined them.
“Hey, Prowl,” Sideswipe said. “I was going to go into Iacon to do some shopping. Do you need anything?”
He had more possessions now than he ever had in his life. “No, thank you.”
Ironhide nodded. “Well, you, me and Ratchet are stuck in the base, but today we get to relax some. What do you want to do for fun?”
Prowl gave him a wing-shrug. “I do not know how to ‘have fun’.”
Sideswipe and Ironhide traded a look that was half amused, half horrified. “If you were anyone else, I’d think that was a joke,” Sideswipe said. “You were playing chess with Optimus the other day, did you have fun then?”
“Yes, I believe I did.”
“Even if Optimus was kicking your aft?” Sideswipe asked.
Prowl raised an eyebrow at him. “I won three out of five matches; that is hardly kicking my aft.”
Both of the other Autobots looked surprised. Ironhide said, “Most of us couldn’t beat Optimus at chess one out of five times. And that was your first time playing? I want to see what you can do with some other games.”
That might be interesting. Prowl nodded assent, and after Sideswipe departed, followed Ironhide into the lounge. The weaponsmith turned on the video screen that dominated one wall, and handed Prowl a control cable. “This one’s called Quintesson Strike,” he said. “Select ‘new player’ and it’ll give you an explanation of the controls.”
Prowl plugged the cable into the port on his wrist. The game output a field divided into hexagons of various colours, and a dozen playing pieces waiting to be placed on it; this was also rendered as an image on the big screen. He grasped at once that this game was far more complex than chess. Each of his pieces had more descriptors than just movement rate, could start the game anywhere on the field, and could take partial damage and recover … paradoxically, that might make the game easier, since there would be more pathways to recover from an error. He hit the start input.
The first round was, naturally, a spectacular failure. The second was only slightly better. By the third round, though, he was able to fight the game’s simulated intelligence to a standstill. By the sixth, achieving the stated objective was no longer in question, and he was playing to win with minimal time and resources. He lost track of his surroundings until a voice said, right next to his head, “That’s slick, man.”
Prowl jumped so hard that he yanked the cable out of his arm; luckily the game paused as soon as it lost the connection. Jazz held up his hands defensively. “Whoa, my bad, dude. I didn’ think ya were that out of it.”
“No harm done.” Prowl now saw that he had collected an audience; Jazz, Ratchet and Mirage as well as Ironhide and a few bots he hadn’t spoken to were watching him play. This triggered a few new emotion tags: he was embarrassed. “I trust I have been sufficiently entertaining,” he said.
“Sure, you’re cleaning up against the SI,” Jazz replied, “But how are ya gonna do ‘gainst another bot? Gimme a cable, Ironhide.” He plugged into the game system and restarted it in two player mode.
Now this was fun. A game SI couldn’t match the processing power of a sentient being. Prowl felt positive tags by the kilobyte, when he destroyed one of Jazz’s pieces, when he carried out a plan, when he anticipated one of Jazz’s moves. His wings twitched with excitement. It was as if his code was designed for this – well, perhaps it was. The game displayed a victory animation. Prowl heard applause and looked around; the entire Autobot crew was watching and cheering. He stopped himself from cringing; cheering among the Decepticons was rarely a good thing. Again, an hour had passed without his noticing, and Sideswipe was back from his errands. However, there was one noticeable missing face.
“Where is Optimus Prime?” he asked.
Ratchet snorted. “In his office, working. Too much to do to take a day off, he says.”
Prowl frowned. It didn’t seem right for his leader to be working while he sat around playing games, though he had to admit it was consistent with Prime’s personality. “Is it necessary for Prime to do this work himself? Have you not offered to take on some of it?”
“Of course we have,” said Sideswipe, “but whenever we ask, he says he doesn’t want to burden us.” Burdening himself, on the other hand, was perfectly all right. Prowl tilted his head.
“In that case, I won’t ask. I will simply do the work.” Prowl didn’t know much about expressing emotions, but he did understand work. And as long as Optimus Prime had work to be done, he would do Prime’s work. Time had not diminished his first impression; in his dreams Prime towered over him, in his guise of liberating warrior. He still felt the impulse to kneel, though he’d put a hard interrupt on that. The awe and … novel tags … were only slightly tempered by exasperation that Prime didn’t take his own status seriously.
“You think it’s a good idea to go behind his back like this? Said Ironhide.
“Perhaps not. But you have tried the direct approach, and if there are security concerns, all of you are aware of my intentions.”
Jazz waved easily. “Nah, Ah think we can trust ya with the ordinary stuff. Tell ya what, take over the scheduling from me, and Ah can do more of the sensitive stuff.”
That would give him a degree of control over Prime’s schedule, as well. “Agreed. So it is a conspiracy, then?”
“Yeah – the Conspiracy of Makin’ Optimus Take a Break.” That got a laugh from the other watching Autobots.
Ratchet said, “Might keep him from working himself to an early breakdown. I’m in.”
“I wish that femme-friend of his had stuck around,” Sideswipe added. “It’d do him good for someone to interface him from time to time.”
“I dunno, the Matrix changed him a lot,” Jazz said. But Prowl froze into immobility as his processor was bombarded with those strange emotion tags – and this time the triggers were obvious. Optimus – interfacing – Oh. At least now he knew what those tags were for. He gave a mental shrug and prepared to rejoin the conversation. He’d cross that bridge when he came to it.
***
Gee, really romantic, Prowl. *snerk*

Next chapter: The Autobots go on a raid and get some new recruits.
- 3
- 4
- 5
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Opening Maneuvers	By : sefiru Category: Transformers > G1 > AU/AR Views: 3161 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I don't own Transformers and make no money on this.

Opening Maneuvers