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The bar glowed brighter than the rest of the Lost Light, neon lights flickering across rows of bottles. Swerve, ever the host, bounced behind the counter with a rag in one servo and too much energy in his voice.
“Alright, listen up!” he declared, pointing dramatically toward the booths. “Tonight’s topic is Earth culture! Strange? Absolutely. Fascinating? Double absolutely. And we are not leaving until everybody here agrees that television is the best invention in the galaxy.”
Across the bar, Rung adjusted his glasses. “You do realize,” he said patiently, “that most of us don’t even need entertainment in the same way humans do.”
“Exactly!” Swerve beamed. “Which is why it’s so weird that humans invented entire fake realities just to… watch other humans pretend to live!”
Whirl slammed his claw against the tabletop, rattling the glasses. “Finally! Someone gets it. I watched one of those so-called ‘romantic comedies.’ Two fleshbags meet, they hate each other, and then—BAM—suddenly they’re kissing. Where’s the logic? Where’s the ultraviolence?!”
“That’s not the point, Whirl,” Rewind explained, perched neatly on Chromedome’s shoulder. “It’s about character growth. Tension. The release of—”
“Boring.” Whirl cut him off with a dismissive wave. “Show me more of those survival shows. At least there, you know who wins: the one that eats the most bugs.”
“Bugs?!” Tailgate squeaked, nearly dropping his cube of energon. “Wait—you mean actual living organisms?!”
“Yeah,” Rewind said, nodding. “They eat them for protein.”
The blue minibot looked horrified. “I thought humans kept bugs as pets!”
“That’s dogs,” Swerve corrected.
“And cats,” Rung added.
“And guinea pigs,” Rodimus said, chiming in with a grin. “Tiny ones. Cuties.”
Tailgate buried his face in his servos with confusion, maybe almost getting a mini migraine. “This planet makes no sense.”
Cyclonus, who had been listening in silence, finally spoke, his voice low and thoughtful. “Their music is… acceptable.”
The chatter dipped for a moment.
“Acceptable?” Rodimus raised an optic ridge. “That’s high praise coming from you.”
Cyclonus inclined his head. “It is primitive compared to Cybertronian harmonics. But it carries weight. Passion. Even pain. They sing as though every breath could be their last.”
For a moment, even Whirl stayed quiet.
Rodimus, sensing the heaviness, cleared his throat and tipped his glass back. “Well, not all their songs are heavy. Half of them are about drinking, dancing, or—” he smirked, “—making bad decisions with strangers.”
“Half?” Swerve scoffed. “Try most! Don’t even get me started on ‘party anthems.’”
“Those sound fun,” Tailgate admitted cautiously.
“Oh, they are,” Swerve said, leaning forward. “Imagine this: a giant crowd of humans, shouting the same words, moving together, all just there to… feel alive.
That’s what they do with music. It’s messy. Loud. Completely impractical. And I love it.”
“Speaking of impractical,” Whirl cut in, “let’s talk about sports. What’s the point of throwing a ball back and forth when you could just fight each other to the death? Way more efficient.”
Rewind groaned. “It’s not about efficiency. It’s about teamwork. Skill. Friendly competition.”
“Competition I get,” Whirl said. “But they make entire stadiums just to watch two groups of organics run after a single object. You know what I’d do? Give everyone their own ball. Problem solved. Way more exciting.”
Rodimus chuckled. “That’s… not how it works.”
“Then their system is broken.”
From a corner within the counter, Ultra Magnus stirred, frowning over his datapad. “I still do not understand their legal systems. Their judicial courts are inconsistent, their laws contradictory, and their punishments illogical. And yet, somehow, they endure.”
Swerve snorted. “You’re just mad they don’t all salute to rules like you do.”
“They should,” Magnus muttered, going back to his work.
The conversations overlapped.
It was chaotic. Loud. Unstructured.
“Okay, okay, everyone shut up!” he yelled, slapping a tray against the counter for attention. “New game: Everything you thought you knew about Earth — debate it! And if you’re wrong, you take a drink. If you’re right… Well, you still take a drink. Because, fun.”
Rodimus leaned back in his chair, smirking. “Translation: Swerve just wants an excuse to hear himself talk about Earth again.”
“Guilty as charged!” Swerve grinned. “But also, c’mon, who doesn’t wanna talk about a planet where people wear shoes inside their own homes?”
“Wait, that’s… normal?” Tailgate blinked. “That’s normal to them?”
“Extremely,” Rewind confirmed, perched on Chromedome’s shoulder with a tiny datapad open. “Some cultures even see it as rude to take them off.”
Tailgate groaned. “Primus help me.”
At the far end, Whirl was already worked up, arms flailing as he retold his version of a human “action movie.”
“And then, right, the guy pulls two pistols out, jumps sideways through the air — THROUGH THE AIR, mind you — and shoots like twelve other guys without even looking. And they just… fall over! Done! Dead! Like dominoes. Fraggin’ beautiful.”
“That sounds… completely unrealistic,” Rung said, sipping calmly from his cube.
“EXACTLY!” Whirl shouted, delighted. “It’s so stupid, it loops back around to brilliant.”
Chromedome frowned. “Doesn’t it bother you that humans glorify violence that way?”
“Bother me?” Whirl cackled. “I commend them. If they can’t do the violence themselves, might as well pretend real hard.”
“Speaking of pretending,” Swerve said, leaning dramatically over the counter, “let’s talk about their fashion.”
Rodimus perked up instantly. “Finally. Thank you. This is my time to shine.”
“Not everything is about your paint job,” Magnus rumbled, not looking up from his datapad.
Rodimus ignored him, waving a hand. “Earth clothes are genius. Jackets, shades, hats — they reinvent themselves every season. Whole new looks. Whole new styles. Can Cybertronians do that? Nope. Stuck with whatever frame you’re forged in.”
“Some of us like stability,” Magnus muttered.
Whirl jabbed a claw toward him. “Yeah, but don’t you ever wish you could just slap on a mustache or a wig or something?”
Magnus stared. “No.”
Swerve practically squealed. “I’m with Roddy on this one. Humans have something called Halloween. It’s like—get this—a whole global excuse to disguise yourself as literally anything you want. Ghosts! Heroes! Hotdogs!”
“Hot… dogs?” Tailgate said nervously.
“Don’t ask,” Rewind sighed.
The debates only got louder.
Rewind was passionately explaining baseball. Whirl was trying to redesign it into a death match. Tailgate was traumatized by the revelation that humans eat meat from other animals.
“Wait wait wait.” Tailgate held up both servos. “They raise creatures… just to… consume them?”
“That’s the basic idea, yes,” Rung confirmed.
Tailgate’s optics went wide. “That’s horrific! Why aren’t they all in prison?!”
Rodimus nearly spit out his drink. “Because that’s… normal?”
“Normal?!” Tailgate wailed. “That’s like if we raised Micromasters as snacks!”
Across the booth, Whirl leaned back, amused. “Now that I’d pay to see.”
In another corner, Ultra Magnus finally looked up from his datapad, irritation etched into every line of his faceplates.
“I still fail to see how humans sustain functional societies,” he said flatly. “Their judicial courts are inconsistent, their governments corrupt, their infrastructure collapsing. And yet… they continue.”
“Exactly!” Swerve grinned, pointing like Magnus had just proved his own argument. “That’s the miracle of Earth! Total chaos, and somehow it works.”
“It doesn’t,” Magnus deadpanned.
“Yet it does,” Rung countered gently. “Or at least, it endures. Which may be more remarkable.”
The room was noisy now — laughter overlapping, voices rising, the sound of energon cubes clinking. But in the midst of it, Cyclonus spoke.
Quietly.
“They are fragile,” he said, optics distant. “And short-lived. Yet they build. Create. Destroy. Love. In the face of inevitable ending, they… persist.”
The noise softened just slightly.
Cyclonus’s voice grew quieter still. “Their music… reflects this. Every song sounds as though they are racing against their own mortality.”
There was a silence after that. Just long enough for everyone to feel the weight of the words.
And then Rodimus, ever the mood-shifter, threw back his cube and grinned. “Alright, alright, enough of this scrap. Who’s up for karaoke? Human-style!”
“Kara—what?” Whirl tilted his helm.
Swerve’s optics lit up. “YES! YES! Finally! Karaoke! It’s like singing, but worse. And drunker. And everyone judges you.”
Whirl stood immediately. “I’m in.”
Rewind groaned. “This is going to be terrible.”
“Exactly,” Swerve said proudly, already queuing up tracks on a cobbled-together Earth music player. “Terrible… and beautiful.”
As the first tinny beats of an old Earth pop song filled the bar, the crew of the Lost Light laughed, jeered, and shoved each other toward the mic.
For one night, the galaxy outside could wait.