Chapter Text
When Prowl walked through the door of his habitat after a long, grueling shift dealing insufferable people (ie Starscream), he had been hoping to finally rest his processor. What he didn't expect was to see Smokescreen and Bluestreak glued to the TV, arguing about whatever was on it.
"Maybe your putting it in wrong!" Bluestreak suggested
"I am not!" Smokescreen retorted slightly offended. Prowl sighed. What was it this time?
"I bet it doesn't even work! How much did you pay for this again? Just admit you got scammed again," Bluestreak exclaimed.
Prowl did not like the sound of that.
"Shut it, Blue I paid good money for this. They said it was a good deal!"
"Who, Swindle?" Prowl's wings flicked up in alarm, well aware of the conmech they often saw at the precinct. The fact that his gambling-loving brother potentially got ripped off was not what Prowl wanted to here when he first walked in the door.
"Sideswipe and Sunstreaker." Oh, that made thing sooo much better! Prowl should've known thise heathens were behind this. He told them they were a bad influence!
"Smokescreen, Bluestreak, explanation now!" Prowl's bark in the put upon older brother tone his younger brothers feared got their attention and they frozen where they stood as they swiftly turns to the doorway. Prowl tool the opportunity to continue.
"Smokescreen, what's this I'm hearing about you buying something from Swindle of all mecha? I distinctly remember telling you to keep away from that criminal!" He scolded.
Smokescreen looked sheepish, but didn't deny it.
"Well? Wat was it this time? How much loss do I need to factor into this month's budget?"
Smokescreen looked away guiltily and mumbled something under his breath.
"I'm sorry, what was that? Speak up Smokscreen," Prowl urged as he tapped his foot impatiently awaiting the damage
"Next month's rent?" Smokescreen was pointedly avoiding looking at Prowl now as he twirled his thumbs nervously. Bluestreak began to shrink and hide behind the couch, knowing the fate about to befall his brother.
Prowl blinked as he tried to process the insanity his younger brother just uttered.
"I'm sorry, you spent WHAT?"
"Nextmonth'srent. To be fair, Prowl Swindle said he'd gice us half-off if we could beat him in poker." Smokescreen decided not to mention the fact that he lost because Swindke cheated. "Swindle said this game was worth 10x that and he threw in specialized remote control so we could totally resell it easy."
But Prowl had stopped listening as his frame started burning in rage.
"YOU WENT AND GAMBLED OUR ENTIRE RENT FOR NEXT MONTH AWAY FOR A VIDEO GAME?!"
Bluestreak squeaked and hid behind Smokescreen as they shook in fear of the raging Praxian, "I told you this was a bad idea Smokey, but did you listen? Noooo! Now Prowl's gonna crash and we're doomed!"
Grounded doesn't even begin to cover the punishment Prowl had in mind for his idiotic brothers as he saw red.
"I thought I taught you better then this! You know not to trust Swindle to play fair, but I see you let your gambling addiction get the best of you again! You're lucky you didn't get a virus from this thing! And as if it wasn't bad enough you had dealings with Swindle, those 2 delinquients were involved too! Why am I not surprised?! I told you to stop hanging out with them! They're a bad influence but since you clearly can't see that, I have no choice but to forbid you from seeing them and ground you both for the next 10 stellar cycles!"
"But Prowl that's not fair!" Smokescreen protested, every the rebellious one of the 3. Bluestreak shook him to stop him from digging their graves even deeper then they already are.
What wasn't fair is that Prowl seemed to be the only one of them trying to keep them afloat and not drown in their cold construction debt and Smokscreen was trying to make that impossible at every turn.
"Smokey, stop you making it worse Prowl's gonna crash!" Blue exclaimed, worried for his oldest brother's health. Prowl's crashes were extremely rough on him.
Prowl seeing red may or may not have been coming from errors popping up on his hub feed. He'd already had a rough shift and this mess with his brother's wasn't helping. But right now he didn't care as he stomped to the game consol his brothers so foolishly wasted their rent on.
"I'm taking this to the station to be marked as evidence and then arresting Swindle! I highly doubt he managed to get this on Cybertron through legal means." Prowl examined the game as he got closer. No doubt it was from some far off organic world and was at least level 13 tech which was banned on Cybertron. As technologically advanced as their world was, they still only had level 10 tech. Knowing Swindle he likely used less then legal means to smuggle it in past any planetary check points. "We're going ro have to track down any other copies he's sold. As for you, both of you are going to work off next month's rent!"
"But we didn't even get a chance to play it!" Bluestreak whined. Smokescreen gave him the stink eye. Hypocrite. Prowl pinched his nose in frustration.
"What could you possibly gain from playing a frivolous dating game?" He snapped back as he showed them the cover. My Love Fantasia. Ridiculous.
"Like you would know Mr. Cold Spark. You could never understand what it's like to want some romance in your life!" Prowl tried to not let it show just how much Smokescreen's words cut and hurt. "Why can't you ever let us have any fun!"
"I'm trying to keep you from making a mistake! You know we can barely get by as is between our Construction debt and your gambling addiction and then you go and spend what we do make on scams from Swindle of all mechs!"
"Oh, like you medical bills from your stupid crashes are helping either?!" That was a really low blow, but right now Smokscreen was too mad to care. He knew he shouldn't have said that, especially from the shadowed look in Prowl's optics before he shook his head.
"You shouldn't have even gotten it in the first place!" He bit back scolding his brithers as he snatched the controller from the sofa to figure out how to turn it off. "Now how do you turn this infernal thing off?!"
"Prowl wait, you can't just hit random buttons, that's like super high tech," Smokescreen warned his irate brother. But his warning went on heard as Prowl hit a certain sequence of buttons and a bright flash erupted from the vidscreen!
"Prowl!" They exclained in surprise, fearful for their elder brother as they covered their optics from the blinding light.
"Smokescreen, Bluestreak, get down!" He shouted and tried to cover his brothers from the blast. This was why he told them to never do dealings with Swindle!
Then a vortex suddenly opened in the room and began sucking everything in. Prowl had his brother hide behind the couch and hang on for dear life. Bluestreak's hand started slipping as he looked at Prowl in fear. Prowl cursed and reached into his subspace for some stasis cuffs to latch Bluestreak onto the leg of the table. In doing so, he lost his own grip and Smokscreen and Bluestreak grabbed their brother's hand, trying desperately to hand on.
Prowl noticed they were getting dragged in with him and he did the only thing his Tac coukd think of as the best course of action to protect his brothers.
He let go.
His younger brothers screamed for him as he was sucked in. Prowl could only look at their faceplates, Bluestreak with tears in his optics and Smokescreen with a face full of regret. That was good. As long as they were safe, Prowl didn't care what happened to him.
"Take care of each other!" He told them as his very likely final words.
"PROWL!"
Prowl closed his own optics, accepting his fate as he was sucked into the strange, very possibly deadly vortex. The only thing on his mind was that Smokescreen and Bluestreak were safe.
PLAYER CHARACTER SELECTED...
PLAYER NAME: PROWL ....WELCOME, PROWL.
GENERATING WORLD 1...
WELCOME TO "MY LOVE FANTASIA."