[Beast Machines] The Toast
Things are pretty crazy. And I tend to be frying my brain on videos or games (Books, too, but that's not brain frying that's repopulating my idea-lake) instead of writing. Bad Okami. Got this done anyways. Vocabulary drabble even though it's way beyond a drabble, and no focus on the vocab word at all.
Have I ever mentioned my love for Beast Wars/Beast Machines?
Title The Toast
Characters/Pairings Cheetor, Black Arachnia/Silverbolt, Rattrap Nightscream, Botanica
Summary Every 'year' they get together to remember old friends.
Author's Note 1 year = 1 vorn, 1 day = 1 orn. Because it always bugged me that Black Arachnia says the Great War only ended 3 centuries ago. And that's such a short time for a transformer, unless the centuries are 100 vorn each. If you find random letters inserted, my apologies. My touchpad is making me jump all over the place.
They gathered at the bar, as far away from the jubilee as they could get and still be in the same city. This day that the rest of the planet saw as its deliverance from death, they only remembered for the life it had cost them. The lives the entire ordeal had laid to waste. They didn’t have much to say to each other anymore. Fifty years saw them drifted apart, each working in different cities in different professions. Leading wholly different lives than when they had all worked together as a team.
He stood off to the side, watching them for a few nanoclicks. He, too, had changed: a process that had started back when the Vok blew up the moon all the way until he had been given his title. He was not the same as when they’d seen him last. No, not even that last format had remained for long. He didn’t worry that they wouldn’t recognize him. His upgrade had been broadcast to anyone within receiving distance, and then bounced from there to the outlying colonies.
He powered his resolve and strode up to the bar.
Rattrap turned towards him first. “If it isn’t Spots. I thought you’d be to busy for us lowly worker class bots.”
Black Arachnia hissed and quite unsubtly kicked Rattrap in the wheel. “Don’t be like that. Why do you think the bar’s so empty? Hello Cheetor.” She blinked her eight optics and stiffened as though realizing her faux pas. “I mean-“
He interrupted her before she could finish apologizing. “Hey, I liked that name. After all I chose it.”
Rattrap snorted. “Ehhhh, ya never did have much taste, kid. Looks like that hasn’t changed any.”
Cheetor looked down at himself and turned so that his paint caught the light just right to sparkle. “What? It’s for the celebration.” He paused to look down at himself, again. “And it’s shiny.”
Rattrap guffawed. “One thing’s for sure, ya haven’t changed a bit.”
Silverbolt stepped out from behind the bar with fragile flutes of glowing liquid energon in his hands. “I have often wondered how much work is really being done by you, and how much by the council,” he said, a smile curling the tips of his lips.
Cheetor’s objection only prompted a round of laughter from some of those gathered.
Botanica and Nightscream didn’t join in the laughter. They’d never known Cheetor before the Axalon’s return to Cybertron. They had heard the stories, of course. But they couldn’t compute it when juxtaposed against the serious mech they’d met.
They’d never seen the way Cheetor used to goof off and call it work. (Cheetor thought he should be proud to be able to admit that now. His friends didn’t need to know that he did not have that luxury with his current title).
Silverbolt handed out the drinks and the group turned solemn again.
Cheetor stared into the shallow depths of the silicate glass. Fifty times had they met over the course of the last half century and still the memories scraped them like rusty joints. Maybe after the next fifty years they really could celebrate.
Black Arachnia helped Silverbolt pass out the rest of the drinks, though it only required her one trip to finish handing them out. Their group was small now. Smaller than it should be, Cheetor thought to himself.
With that in mind, Cheetor lifted up his glass. “To friends who should have been here. Tigatron and Airazor.”
Nightscream stepped away from and tapped his glass against Cheetor’s. “To Savage Noble.”
Black Arachnia flipped her optics open and gave Nightscream a hard look before she added her glass to Cheetor’s. “To Depth Charge.”
Silverbolt grumbled, though whether at his consort’s toast or some other thing only comprehensible to his sense of honor, no one seemed able to tell. “To Rhinox.”
Rattrap stuck the glass in his tail. “Guess that leaves me with ole Chopper-face.You guys did that on purpose didn’tcha? Ow! Hey what’s with the rodent abuse, Spider Lady?” He sighed at her silent glare and added his glass to the other four. “Fine. To Dinobot, that ole chopper-face.”
Botanica hung back, tilting the fluted glass so that the liquid inside spun in lazy circles. “We always make this about our failures to our friends. Perhaps we should start making this about our victories, as well.” She lifted the glass, and met Cheetor’s optics. “Here’s to you, Centennial Prime.”
Cheetor looked down as optics blinked around him, suddenly embarrassed to have the spotlight thrown on him.
“Centennial.” “Centennial.” “Cheetor.” “Spots. Ow! C’mon, now!”
Cheetor gave them a smile, and clinked his glass against theirs. This is for you, Optimus. Big Bot.