Ep0.5 - "Cross My Spark and Hope" - Closed

bumblebee
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Ep0.5 - "Cross My Spark and Hope" - Closed Mar 7, 2012 5:40:38 GMT -5

Post by bumblebee on Mar 7, 2012 5:40:38 GMT -5

Bee was off duty and currently powering his way through the final levels of Super Racer 7, one of the games the children enjoyed but Bee was rapidly tiring of. Human games were certainly fun. Not challenging perhaps until you dialed back your reaction times to purely tactile reflex. Still it was fun to simply run through it. The children were still at school and Bee had some down time between shifts. It was weird… having down time, part of the new initiative to not run Team Prime fragging ragged like they had been. With the addition of Bluestreak, Blaster, Ironhide, Shadowrunner, Steeljaw,Jazz and even Sniper… the work load had reduced significantly. There was time actually dedicated to R&R instead of stolen between duties.

The Autobot resisted the urge to text Rafael, as he was in class right now and he didn’t want to disturb his friend. That said, no one but the kids and sometimes Bulkhead appreciated video games. He’d been attempting to school Bluestreak in the fine art of Mortal Combat but ou seemed to have not found the right genre of game for hir yet.

He wanted to go racing or play field tag, but Shadow runner was busy so Bee occupied himself with a combination of video games and cartoons in the rec room, which had been dedicated to entertainment for Bots off duty and human visitors. Bee was seated on the floor, a modified console control in hand while he clicked away furiously, blue optics all aglow.

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Ep0.5 - "Cross My Spark and Hope" - Closed Mar 11, 2012 21:19:26 GMT -5

Post by Deleted on Mar 11, 2012 21:19:26 GMT -5

Jazz came out of his talk with Optimus...energized. He wasn't sure how Optimus managed to lay more work on him and make him like it, honestly. It was a power to be feared.

Base security. And Shadow. It was odd, Jazz thought, that one mech would stick out to Optimus as needing guidance. Sure, Shadow was the only spec ops bot here, but...something in the glyphs Optimus had used made Jazz think that there was something off besides not having a fellow spybot to order her around. It was interesting.

Jazz was passing one of the side rooms as he thought this and caught a flash of yellow out of the corner of his optics. Ah, Bumblebee. He hadn't met the scout but had heard good things about him. He was well-liked by the humans and bots alike.

And, if something the kids had mentioned was true, a friend of Shadow's.

Well. No time like the present, right?

Jazz made a hard left into the room, where the scout seemed to be playing one of the human electronic games on the tiny console. He pinged in a friendly manner. "Hi, there. Don't think we've been introduced. I'm Jazz." He grinned crookedly. "Though I imagine you've heard that by now."

bumblebee
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Ep0.5 - "Cross My Spark and Hope" - Closed Mar 12, 2012 12:10:58 GMT -5

Post by bumblebee on Mar 12, 2012 12:10:58 GMT -5

‘Ironhide told me some stories,’ said Bumblebee, not looking away from the screen lest his concentration be broken. ‘So I’m slightly forewarned.’

There was a massive explosion from on screen followed by the words ‘MAXIMUM HIGH SCORE! NEW RECORD!’ and Bee paused the game to give the saboteur his full attention, blue optics beaming brightly up at him, spinning himself around, still seated to regard the new mech up and down. Jazz was of similar build to him, about the same height, maybe half a head taller and dark plated gray-blue over black under mesh. Optical visor over his optics might have made his expressions hard to read if he wasn’t radiating long-wave friendly like he couldn’t help himself. Bumblebee decided he liked him right away.

‘I’m Bumblebee,’ he said. ‘Though I guess you’ve heard that too. What’s up? You off shift?’

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Ep0.5 - "Cross My Spark and Hope" - Closed Mar 17, 2012 9:27:57 GMT -5

Post by Deleted on Mar 17, 2012 9:27:57 GMT -5

Jazz grinned. Ironhide. Man, he was still getting used to the idea of his cohort alive and well and HERE. And Jazz had spent most of the time since he'd gotten here in direct contact with Ironhide, so Ironhide likely had been telling stories about him before he even showed up....

Cohort. So awesome.

"Never quite got ON shift yet," Jazz said wryly. "Need to go see Ratchet before I'll be clear for real duty. Went and reported to Optimus, though, and was wanderin', taking in the base, seeing who was about." He grinned. "The human younglings are a riot."

bumblebee
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Ep0.5 - "Cross My Spark and Hope" - Closed Mar 17, 2012 19:03:52 GMT -5

Post by bumblebee on Mar 17, 2012 19:03:52 GMT -5

‘Yup,’ said the scout, the low chirp-buzz of his voice staticky and unconcerned. ‘You haven’t met June/Jack’s mother/Creator yet. She’s on-call at the hospital right now. She’s….’ He debated if ‘nice’ was the right word. June Darby had talked down several members of Team Prime at one point or another, was generally in possession of nerve that put some soldiers to shame. Bee had occasionally been chastened by her for one reason or another, usually on matters regarding curfew and speed limits. He decided at last on, ‘…scary-nice.’

He gestured to the games he was playing. ‘These are Raf and Miko’s games. You wanna play?’

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Ep0.5 - "Cross My Spark and Hope" - Closed Mar 17, 2012 21:48:17 GMT -5

Post by Deleted on Mar 17, 2012 21:48:17 GMT -5

"Sure!" That was Jazz's stock response whenever confronted with a new form of entertainment. He might not find it personally entertaining, but he'd give anything a try. He stepped forward, sinking to the floor beside Bee. "I'll warn you, though, I'm terrible at these games. In battle, in a fight, my reflexes are top notch, but put me in front of a screen? Pffft."

He wasn't even exaggerating a little. His battle against Iacon Tournament II had been legendary and had ultimately ended in a lot of lost bets.

Jazz grinned. "Scary-nice, huh? I've known a few femmes like that." He peered at the controller. "The more I see of the humans, the more I think that they're not so different from us, really."

<<Jazz is making small talk here. Feel free to move things along, move to another topic, etc. Eventually he wants to talk about Shadow, but he won't dive into it right away, rather steer the conversation toward how Bee likes Earth and this duty post and his crewmates here.>>[/i}

bumblebee
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Ep0.5 - "Cross My Spark and Hope" - Closed Mar 20, 2012 2:55:59 GMT -5

Post by bumblebee on Mar 20, 2012 2:55:59 GMT -5

Bee tossed the new Bot the controller and promptly cycled through the screens back to the main menu, reselecting for multi-player and immediately swapping out his last racer and car for another one and hitting ready. He beamed expectantly at Jazz, doorwings quirked high on his back with obvious glee and interest and a manner that seemed to indicate that he required gaming with her conversation. Nevertheless, while Jazz selected his choice invirtual victim, the scout whirred a little, thinking.

‘Yeeeeah, I think so too. I mean, we don’t always get eachother and sometimes Mrs. Darby gets red in the face and yells at Optimus… but it’s because she cares. Like Ratchet…. I guess.’ Bee’s right doorwing quirked once, his optics lenses spinning a little. ‘Rafael is my best friend though. He likes all my games and racing and actually understands/comprehends/gets Basic for some reason. We don’t know how/why, but it’s awesome. I can’t usually talk to the other humans cuz of the language barrier.’

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Ep0.5 - "Cross My Spark and Hope" - Closed Mar 23, 2012 21:08:16 GMT -5

Post by Deleted on Mar 23, 2012 21:08:16 GMT -5

Jazz chose a human randomly and picked a white racing car with a jaunty blue stripe. He was amusedly imagining June Darby yelling at Optimus Prime (complete with hands-on-hips action) when he caught up with the rest of what Bee had said. "Wait what, he understands BASIC? He...what...HUH?"

The very idea was impossible and preposterous and other multisyllabic words that meant "it can't happen".

...well...all right, Jazz could think of a few ways it could happen. He made a note to scan Raf very thoroughly next time he saw him. He didn't think it LIKELY the boy was a (very tiny) Pretender, but hey, Jazz hadn't stayed functioning this far into the game by being careless.

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Ep0.5 - "Cross My Spark and Hope" - Closed Mar 25, 2012 14:59:07 GMT -5

Post by bumblebee on Mar 25, 2012 14:59:07 GMT -5

Bee shrugged.’I dunno. I don’t think he gets all of it all the time. And obviously he can’t pick up glyphs or anything, but… yeah. Ratchet ran a bunch of tests/scans/check-ups the first time Raf was around. Says he has ‘longer EM waves’ than most humans, but since he’s not Cybertronian who knows what that means. Sides, not even humans know everything about themselves so who knows what they can do.’ Bee hit the start button and launched the game, the starting line cycling up, the white and black checkered flag flapping across the screen. ‘Might just be he’s super intuitive. I dunno. He’s one of my best friends here on earth.

The starting tone pinged gun and Bee activated immediate nitro, his virtual car tearing of the starting line and up the narrow opening corridor of the course. ‘You used to be part of Hide/Blue’s old cohort? And work with Optimus, right/yes? We’re all super happy you’re around/here. Even Optimus is in better spirits. We’ve been getting so many new Bots.’

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Ep0.5 - "Cross My Spark and Hope" - Closed Mar 27, 2012 22:54:08 GMT -5

Post by Deleted on Mar 27, 2012 22:54:08 GMT -5

Jazz, his virtual car left in the dust, immediately saw how THIS was gonna go. He took his time with learning the controls, checking out what the buttons did and nitroing his car into a wall at one point.

He dropped into Basic without really thinking about it. It was an old habit: adopting whatever method of communication a mech used. Such shadowing was useful in spec ops. It could work as well on mechanisms as it evidently worked on humans in giving the subtle signal "I'm like you, nothing threatening here". (Not that it always worked--no amount of Soundwave's glyph-diction had cracked that nut, that was for sure).It was also just Jazz's own spark-instinct: to blend in, to minimize differences, to soften the edges between him and whoever he was talking to. In the first few decacycles of their cohort bond, Ironhide had had to break Jazz of unconsciously mimicking his accent.

'Right/yes. When I joined, Chromia was my drill sergeant/instructor. Trained me out of some bad habits and took a liking to me. She took me home/loved me for some odd reason, and Ironhide took to me eventually. Hadn't been cohort a vorn when we took in Bluestreak.'

Jazz laughed as Bee crossed the finish line before Jazz had even hit the midway mark. 'I'm glad to be here, and that I'm helping/easing/cheering folks. That's certainly my goal/aim/function!'

And they've not even SEEN the Jazzmeister at work yet.

'Evidently Optimus thinks so, too. Just made me an officer for some reason. THAT's gonna be interesting/scary/potentially fun. ...Ow.' Jazz's car had wiped out spectacularly going over a ramp, landing in a pixellated tree in a way that looked...yeah. Painful.

bumblebee
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Ep0.5 - "Cross My Spark and Hope" - Closed Mar 27, 2012 23:40:58 GMT -5

Post by bumblebee on Mar 27, 2012 23:40:58 GMT -5

Bee’s optics flashed briefly at Jazz’s shift into Basic, his armor rasping when his doorwings flicked down fractionally. He had to stop himself from glaring. Basic was a damaged language. You spoke Basic when you could not speak a higher order vocalization-strata. To come down to Basic was that: coming down to it. Like speaking to a new-spark before it downloaded its first grammar package or simplifying your language glyphs for hack-damaged unfortunates that got their neural nets fried.

Bee bristled back the instinct to tell the mech that he didn’t have to fragging talk down to him… and reined it in. Did so only because Shadowrunner had once done the same thing. Jazz was nice. He wasn’t talking down to him. He was trying to friendly and talk Basic like it was slang. That’s all. The scout cycled his vents and told himself to just be polite about it.

‘You don’t have to talk to me in Basic,’ said Bee, keeping his tone amicable enough. He let his car to a victory lap, kept his demeanor cool. ‘Shadowrunner does, sometimes/maybe/kinda, cuz its habit. You don’t have to talk/use/speak it around me, okay/got it?’ It drew a line under what he’d lost and he didn’t need that. Even with Shadow, she was speaking the language of her dead cohort just to stave of the loss. His optics flickered at Jazz. ‘Shadow either.’

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Ep0.5 - "Cross My Spark and Hope" - Closed Mar 30, 2012 23:13:35 GMT -5

Post by Deleted on Mar 30, 2012 23:13:35 GMT -5

Jazz winced, field flickering apology and contrition. Bad call, Jazzman. Ironhide always said that'd get you in trouble one day. "Sorry. Didn't mean to offend."

Jazz waited a klik or two, as they went through car selection again and the countdown on the screen set them both racing around the track. Jazz did much better this time, though he was very much behind Bee by the halfway mark. "I can tell Shadow, too, if you want? I'm sure she's not trying to offend. Might be she's just got the same half-glitched spec ops instincts I do to try to blend in."

Aaaand Jazz's car wiped out in a spectacular gout of fire and flying parts. Jazz sighed. "Okay, that tree was NOT there the first time around...."

bumblebee
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Ep0.5 - "Cross My Spark and Hope" - Closed Mar 30, 2012 23:34:55 GMT -5

Post by bumblebee on Mar 30, 2012 23:34:55 GMT -5

‘Already had that conversation,’ said Bee, his tonal glyphs neutral. ‘We’re friends. We speak Basic because her old team used to use it as shorthand so… she’s fine. But you might wanna just…’ He supposed saying ‘shut your big mouth’ would be a bit discourteous. He stopped a moment, frowning internally. As Jazz crashed into a tree, he was reconsidering his topic of conversation. Jazz hadn’t done anything wrong. He shouldn’t have been this annoyed… I just don’t want to talk about Shadow. It wasn’t his place to start talking about her old team, whom he knew nothing about save for their KIA status and Barricade’s fragging cold-sparked murder of them. He shifted his doorwings uncomfortably. ‘Wanna play something else?’

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Ep0.5 - "Cross My Spark and Hope" - Closed Mar 30, 2012 23:57:50 GMT -5

Post by Deleted on Mar 30, 2012 23:57:50 GMT -5

Jazz could feel Bumblebee's field going thin and tight. He wasn't sure what he'd said, whether it was his gaffe or talking about Shadow or her team.

Jazz evidently wasn't enough of a spec ops mech to see and not step in whatever hole'd just swallowed up the conversation, but he was more than enough of one to know when to give up his agenda. "Sure." He grinned, teasing. "Maybe we can just restart the conversation while we're at it, as I seem to have driven that one into a tree, too."

He tapped his field, contrite but longwave and friendly, gently out towards Bee. "Hi, my name's Jazz. I heard you're the mech in charge of all the cool games around here. I warn you, I suck at them, but maybe if you give me something, oh, youngling level or lower I can keep up?"

bumblebee
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Ep0.5 - "Cross My Spark and Hope" - Closed Mar 31, 2012 0:03:28 GMT -5

Post by bumblebee on Mar 31, 2012 0:03:28 GMT -5

‘You and Steeljaw would get on,’ said Bee, easing up his own EM a little and shooting the older mech a kind of cocksure sidelong look. ‘He sucks at games too.’ Which was forgiveness enough. The scout immediately cycled up the start menu and swapped into battle mode instead. ‘Imma teach you how to do all the combos. Then you can lose to me with a fighting chance. Okay?’ And it would have to be okay because Jazz had stuck his pede down his intake so now it was his rules and his way. Honestly, he wasn’t bothered by Jazz. He was clearly a good guy, and one of Optimus’ friends.

He could forgive him for sucking at games… and first impressions. That was easy enough.

fin.