Omake: Pan-Earth-Holiday Party!

[Deleted]

Many human cultures had a celebration marking the winter solstice: due to their planet's tilted rotation, the shortest day and longest night of the year. The details varied widely, but they tended to share similar themes: light, rebirth, the return of hope to the world. It all appealed to Rhinox immensely.

And, thanks to the humans' Internet, Rhinox could do a lot of research. He was just putting the finishing touches on a sparkly, festive Christmas tree as the sun dipped below the horizon. There were long tables waiting for the goodies the others had promised to bring, set with dozens of lights that he'd fashioned to resemble candles; a menorah sat in the center of them, all eight 'candles' alight. Rhinox hit the last power switch and strings of lights flickered to life all around.

Everything was ready. Rhinox smiled in satisfaction.

((Off-canon, pan-faction, non-religion-specific holiday party, anyone?))

[Deleted]

"Fowler's going to want to know why the base's power requirements are up again," Shadow teased, entering the room with an armful of red, white, and brown fur. She looked around, found a slightly-less-decorated corner of the room, and a few moments later the mess of plush had been sorted into Santa and eight tiny reindeer.

"You're lucky," she said, pulling a brightly colored sleigh from her subspace and carefully setting Santa inside. "Steeljaw talked me out of acquiring actual reindeer for the party."

[Deleted]

"Aw, actual reindeer would have been awesome," Jazz said as he followed her in, walking over to the table and starting to unload things from his subspace. One clutch of energon cubes. Another. A clutch of high grade cubes. Another clutch of a slightly different color. A plate of energon gummies. Three rust sticks. A tub of metal-dusted mineral bonbons. Another cube of high grade, this time an ominous RED color....

"Though I guess it's for the best. We'd probably scare the slag out of the poor things," Jazz said.

He turned to examine the decorations. He gave Shadow a two-thumbs-up for her reindeer-arranging skills and started eyeing doorways for likely mistletoe placement-sites.

[Deleted]

"The reindeer were fine with me," Shadow said, selecting one of the safer looking cubes of high grade, and securing some energon gummies just in case they didn't last until Steeljaw arrived. "The issue was clean-up. As Jaws pointed out, reindeer aren't usually housebroken." She paused. "I also think he might have been afraid they had fleas. You know how he gets about things small enough to crawl under his plates."

Grinning, she gave Jazz a little bow in reply to his unspoken praise. "Center of the room's a good hanging spot. High enough that Prime might not even notice it's there."

[Deleted]

"If you two are plotting against Prime," Rhinox called, "I officially know nothing about it."

The energon and goodies were welcome additions to the tables; even the ominous red one only looked festive in this setting. Rhinox had no plans to touch that one, but he imagined Rattrap would be happy. And at some point would attempt to crawl into the cube. Mental note: sit on Rattrap.

[Deleted]

"A simple observation is not a conspiracy," Shadow said. "And if it is, you're already part of it, because you planned the party that gave Jazz and excuse to bring mistletoe onto the base." She looked around suspiciously. "Which reminds me, where is Rattrap?"

[Deleted]

Jazz, meanwhile, could not answer, because he was busy pinging Shadow with glyphs that translated into "YOU ARE A GENIUS" and calculating the best way to get to the girders in the middle of the room and attach the mistletoe.

<<Consider the room mistletoe'd! (Also, will be away until day after Christmasish, so feel free to carry on and move Jazz around however!>>

[Deleted]

Shadow watched, amused, as Jazz risked life and limb - or at least, some serious dents and a lecture from Ratchet - to climb up and hang a large bunch of mistletoe from the ceiling. It was ridiculous, it was stupid, and it was utterly, utterly infectious.

Impulsively, she broke into the first Christmas song that came to mind. "Oh by gosh by golly, it's time for mistletoe and holly. Tasty pheasants, Christmas pre...what?"

She broke off to glare at Jazz, who was grinning at her with obvious delight. "What?" she asked again; she was no singer, but it was hardly as if the organics' vocalizations were complex. "After four decades on this planet, I think I'm allowed to pick up a few things from the humans."

[Deleted]

A truce had been called between both factions for the occassion (because, really, when had the lot of them last had a real day off from the war?), but it was still only through an encrypted groundbridge opened to the Nemesis, not from it, that gave any interested Decepticon access to the festivities within the Autobot base. Always a mech to lead by example, Megatron was the first to arrive.

Well, Fairwinds tore out of the vortex ahead of him trailing purple and silver tinsel whilst the Decepticon Commander maintained a more dignified pace.

Dignity was the absolute last thing on Fairwinds' processor as she began a rapid circuit of the central command room of the Autobot base, skirting close to the ceiling and singing with unabashed, longwave delight.

"Oh rest ye merry Autobots
Let nothing you dismay!
But Prime has lost his sense of fun
He can't be bright and gay!
Primes don't party 'less they're tanked
So get the charging underway!
O tidings of moodiness at bay,
Moodies at bay!
O tidings of moodiness at bay!"

Fairwind's gleeful singing was abruptly cut off when the cassette vanished entirely in Megatron's raising fist, falling silent for two kliks before giggling to herself in the dark. Not looking as his hand reopened, not deigning to acknowledge Fairwinds' hyperactive existance at this point, Megatron let her fly off again and come to perch on top of the tree.

It leaned dangerously beneath her weight, and she spread her wings with little tilts and shifts until her balance was just right. Then, wings open, helm high and field vibrating with happy/happy/joy/joy, proudly proclaimed: "I'm the Fairy Star!"

The warlord cast her a glower.

Fairwinds grinned back, wobbling a little on her perch. "My next verse was all about you, Master!"

Megatron gave her his back and turned to face the present Autobots. From his subspace he produced a rather large red sack (Fairwinds, the Expert on Human Culture out of the pair of them, had absolutely insisted it be red and velvet. She'd only tried to get him to wear the hat once, however...) and set it down on the ground. Pulling out the golden cord to open the sack, an irresponsible amount of vividly bright cubes glowed out.

"I come bearing High Grade and fortified gummies in the shape of elderly human walking aids, simplified solar bodies.... and Fairwinds," he remarked, making a rather good go of keeping a completely neutral expression. "The turkeys are being held on board until they are required. When is the ritual incineration due to take place?"

[Deleted]

As host, it fell to Rhinox to greet the new arrivals, and he tried to do so with warmth and civility. ...It helped that he was amused by Fairwinds' song. "Lord Megatron," he greeted, using the warlord's title just this once, and "Little miss," as he didn't know the cassette's name. "Thank you for coming, and for your generous contribution."

Then, as Jazz gathered up the loot and Fairwinds perched in the rafters to examine the mistletoe, Rhinox respectfully took Megatron aside and explained The Thing About The Turkeys as succintly as he could: that the tradition was cooking them, not incinerating them, and then only for consumption, which Rhinox didn't think was Megatron's idea of fun any more than digging ground-up flesh out of Megatron's intakes was Rhinox's. Therefore, would he please put the poor birds back where he found them at his earliest convenience?

.....Meanwhile, he was pinging the YouTube link to the "Mr. Scrooge" song from the Muppet Christmas Carol to Jazz and Shadowrunner, with the added note, Try to keep a straight face.

[Deleted]

For the younger generation of autobots, such as Bluestreak. There was a distinct lack of enriching native culture. Ou had been lucky, Between Jazz, Chromia and Ironhide ou had gotten the most of what they could teach hir of life before the war. Still Ou found hirself eagerly diving into Earth's culture and more specifically their celebrations.

It was a practice in self control not to chuckle at the sight of Megatron toting a giant Santa's sack instead making a bee lie to the tree and immediately unloading hir subspace full of presents. Humming along softly to the Muppets Christmas carol sound track. Once the tree was properly landed with gifts ou went to the table and once again unloaded hir subspace. This time with every kind of sweet imaginable. There were cane shaped rust sticks, Energon goodies of all shapes sizes and consistencies, coolant gels and hir pies de resistance. Rust covers oil truffles with a sweet high grade filling.

Ou had been stockpiling for a while for this.

[Deleted]

It was called a Christmas truce. There had not been one in over a human century… but Team Prime was willing to play dumb and pull the ‘when in Rome’ card. There was a time (as he needed reminding of so often) that the people of Cybertron had days of peace to call their own; where all Cybertronians could lay down their arms in the name of – if nothing else – just needing a break. The cultural goodwill of such holidays had long since been spent in the death-dealing of four-million years and there was no peace left to be taken in the name of their old traditions. More common, in fact, was the tradition of their adaptive warrior race to, instead, adopt the traditional days of peace of their host planets and use those days as excuse to stop.

The paradox of the Cybertronian race was their daily opportunities taken to murder each other were sometimes counter-balanced by the mutual want to break the monotony of murdering each other. They had plenty of that in the day job. It was part of their process for new planetary occupation: land, hide, figure out a peace day, obligatorily try to kill someone from the other side, put it on the calendar. The Bots had landed in America and within ten minutes of assimilating language, establishing internet connection, and learning the concept of ‘Googling’ they’d found their cease-fire excuse: December the 25th.

“Turkey incineration,” said Optimus, coming into the control room from a side corridor, “is strictly a Thanksgiving tradition. As I understand it, there are no specific animals required for incineration during Christmas… also, I feel that ‘incinerate’ may be in incorrect verb now that I’m hearing it aloud…” He glanced at Rhinox. "It may be more in the holiday spirit to... donate or release them."

He speculatively wondered if gifting a couple hundred turkeys to Nurse Darby would be culturally appropriate or inappropriate...

[Deleted]

It was Soundwave who stalked though the ground bridge next, his stride as confident as if he were merely passing into another section of the Nemesis.

The mech seemed prepared for a slightly different cultural celebration; The festive bright green and yellow patterned cloth that draped over his body and surprisingly large basket in his arms did not exactly fit the colors and style of the rest of the decorations. He paused a moment at the mouth of the ground bridge to scan for his Master and upon finding him unharmed and in conversation with a bot he knew to be particularly peaceful, he continued to the center table to set up his own contributions.

He took his time unloading the contents of his basket. A metal-mesh mat went onto the table and on top of it he meticulously arranged a variety of raw energon and metal ores. Next to the ores he set a deep chalice of what had to have been a very pure, very rare premiumum grade, judging from its pearly white shimmer. Finally a shallow metal dish came to rest behind the mat and seven slow burning magnesium sticks set into seven small groves into its surface -- A cybertronian candelabra of sorts, one obviously fashioned hastily and with very little artistic talent. Luckily it was the thought that counted....or so Soundwave hoped as he stepped back to give his contribution a final once over.

The Comm specialist was actually quite proud of his cultural reinterpretation of the already very cultural holiday. A small part of him actually found the analogy significant and meaningful, though he'd never say it out loud. Well, no more than his current actions already did.

[Deleted]

Bluestreak was still arranging hir own contributions when Soundwave approached and began to set out his own. Looking over the items he set out before looking up, waaaay up at the imposing communications officer. Maybe it was The Muppets Christmas Carol playing some were in the background but Soundwave gave Bluestreak and definite Ghost of Christmas Future vibe going. Ou was going to just leave him be but reconsidered. It's the season of peace after all.
This was the season of peace after all. Ou may as well try to reach out a bit. Looking up to offer him a smile.

"Thank you for bringing everything you did. That Candelabra looks nice did you make it?"

[Deleted]

<<Bringing a certain NPC out of the closet for this. Feel free to have him frolic (hah!) through the rest of the scene however is funniest.>>

Jazz observed the room from his spot in the rafters and nodded in satisfaction. Tasty goodies. Good turnout. Everybody getting along, even. Megatron and Prime were not killing each other yet and were, apparently, attempting to figure out what to do with three hundred turkeys.

Jazz mostly wanted to know where the Decepticons had GOTTEN three hundred turkeys. Raided a turkey farm?

Jazz's sensors pinged with the information that he was not alone up here. Not an unusual occurrence, what with them having a Steeljaw around. This base cat was considerably more dangerous, though. The still-healing clawmarks in Jazz's legs attested to that.

"Hey, kittycat, what's shakin'?"

Ravage did not deign to reply, instead taking up residence on the next beam over, stretching (with a truly unnecessary display of claws, in Jazz's opinion) and then sprawling over the beam with feline disregard for gravity.

"Aw, you're not still sore about the EMP grenade, are you?"

His only answer was a dismissive tailflick.

"If it's any consolation, I had to pull out the big...uh...grenades...because you were makin' tinsel out of me in there."

Well, yes, of COURSE, flicked the tail.

"So yeah...nothing personal, just, y'know, business."

Ravage did not reply for a long moment, most of which was taken up with both of them watching as the mecha below them mingled and, to all sensors, willfully forgot that they were enemies for the day. Jazz swung over a careful distance from Ravage to get a better look at what goodies Soundwave was pulling out of his subspace.

"I had not heard that you were still functioning," Ravage said, finally. "The last we noted, you had disappeared after destroying that outpost in the Sauri cluster." His glyphs were not accusatory, but more well-met, respected enemy.

Jazz winced. "Yeaaaah, can we not talk about that? That was a bad week."

Whatever, said Ravage's tail.

They went back to watching the activity below.

And this, Jazz thought, is why Ravage sucks at parties. Serious cat is serious.

Still.

Jazz pulled something out of his subspace and set it between them. "Made you a present."

It was a large energon gummy, carefully molded...into the shape of a mouse.

Ravage huffed and laid his head down on his paws. "I hate you."

Jazz grinned.