Don't Start The Fire – You Might Get Burned
"Get out of my way!" Starscream growled as he slammed the door into Dirge's face.
The other youngling kicked it back open with a thruster and stopped after him. Why was Starscream so freagin' pissed – it was HIM that failed. "But you told me that paper was perfect! You told me!" he yelled after him.
The red Seeker wheeled around and grabbed Dirge by his cockpit. "Well, those afts don't know what good writing is – do they? They're just pieces of slag with worthless pieces of paper hanging on the wall," he snarled as he tossed his friend on the ground and stomped off.
Dirge looked down at the paper in his hand. It was covered in so much red ink that he could barely make out his own typing! Glancing back up at the retreating form of his supposed friend, he snorted. That's what he got for believing the arrogant aft and asking him to tutor him. The slogger had bragged so much about his higher level of intelligence than everyone else in class – that Dirge had been suckered like an Insecticon to vegetation. Looking back down at his paper, so full of obvious grammatical errors that even a newly sparked protoform should've spotted it, he felt that sinking feeling in his core. Now he had to face his dad tonight, and he'd probably get his afterburners whooped for this one. All because he'd used Starscream as his proofreader! Sighing in disgust, he crumpled the paper up and shoved it in his cockpit.
Grumbling to himself, the agitated Seeker stormed down the sidewalk. How dare the bastards tell HIM that he couldn't be an official proofreader! He was smarter than all of them put together and then some! Who cared that he hadn't even written one paper.. Hadn't posted one piece of 'creative writing' on the class' eLearn site? Rules didn't apply to HIM!
"Heard you got fired as a proofreader," Thundercracker snickered as he and Skywarp fell in next to him.
"Frag you," Starscream mumbled under his breath. He was in too foul of a mood to deal with even his 'good friends' snide comments.
The purple youngling snickered as he and Thundercracker locked glances. They'd figured that Starscream would eventually get busted. He didn't even meet the minimum qualifications for a proofreader, so when he'd boldly announced he was one – his two buddies had made a bet on how long it'd be before he'd get reprimanded. The fact that Dirge had posted an assignment filled with so many blatant errors on the eLearn site for all to read, and had mentioned who his proofreader was – had made them break out into hysterical laughter when they had logged on in the library and seen it.
"Guess you owe me five creds," the blue youngling said as he held out his hand to Skywarp.
Skywarp couldn't help but glare sideways at Starscream as he grudgingly handed over the funds. He'd thought the red youngling was just a little brighter than that – but he'd been proven wrong. But then his optics lit up with a devilish gleam as an idea popped in his meta. He considered the idea for a few moments, and then a look of mischief crossed his face. "Hey, you mechs wanna get even with Perceptor?" he asked.
Starscream turned his head, glaring at the Seeker at first. "Doing what?" he asked. He hated that freagin' mech with a passion! Perceptor was always showing off his smarts by making everyone else look bad on tests. And now the slogger was getting the top scores in this fraggin' creative writing course too!
"Let's see if we can make him cry. Put a bunch of things about him all over the net," Skywarp smirked. He hated the red youngling as much as Starscream did – so it would be funnier than Grimlock getting a good CPU to bully Perceptor a bit.
"Sounds like fun," Thundercracker agreed as he slapped his wing mate on his intake.
So with a lighter step and cheerful snickers about what they were going to do, the trio waltzed toward the Academy's library and headed to the computer lab.
-----
"Hey look at all these papers the freager's published on eLearn?" Skywarp stated as he scanned through the database of creative papers. It was obnoxious how many papers the mech had typed up and published! Granted his early works had merely gotten C's, but now the bastard was getting A's on everything. The purple youngling narrowed his optics in jealousy, he hated success.. Really hated it..
Thundercracker snorted, "The smart aft probably has nothing else to do with his time than freagin' write." He scrolled down through the comment section under several of Perceptor's papers, his internal rage growing as he saw page after page of good comments.
Narrowing his crimson optics, Starscream leaned back and crossed his arms. It disgusted him to no end that another mech was outdoing him. Well, granted he hadn't bothered to write a single paper, much less post it on eLearn – but that didn't matter. He wanted to stop Perceptor.. Get him so worked up that he COULDN'T write! That he couldn't get freagin' inspired for a while. Bring the smart aft down to their level. "Let's give him some 'fun' comments, shall we?" he snickered.
An astrohour later, the three of them had finally come up with a perfect 'comment' to leave under one of Perceptor's papers. Skywarp grinned at his two cohorts as he read the final copy:
'We,
the Committee of Quality Mech Writers; have
learned from all the other students on eLearn that you are a complete
and totally inconsiderate aft. You have totally ignored the
instructor's specific guidelines on the accepted reference
characters and their specified characteristics. To top that off,
you've turned your freagin' Mary-Sue to be the slaggin'
glitched nitwit that he is by conning these undeserving, defenseless
characters into both obeying and idolizing him. Basically, you've
just made them so completely OUT-OF-CHARACTER. Now we are in severe
agonizing pain since our optics are leaking energon down our
faceplates and our metas are now suffering severe glitches. We are
now reduced to the Dinobots in mental capacity, and you're taking
us terrifyingly closer to your level of pathetic intellect. Thanks to
these papers that you've posted, we now have to endure constant
defragmentation cycles for the next half cycle in order to repair
this damage to our sensory nets. We, the Committee of Quality
Mech Writers, demand you slaggin' get off of this site until you've
researched more on what the instructor laid out, before you EVER
decide to contemplate that you can type a proper paper." (see BTW)
"Oh,
that's SWEET!" Thundercracker snickered as Skywarp finished his
recitation with a flourish of fake drama. Leaning forward, he hit the
key to post the comment.
"That'll make him cry," Skywarp snickered derisively. He hoped the slogger ended up breaking down and wailing in class tomorrow. It'd really put the juice in his energon.
"Naw, that's not nearly enough. I want the freager bawling his optics out," Starscream snickered as he went to the main page. This was where students posted their comments directly to each other. And it was publicly accessible by all. His fingers were a blur as he typed in a comment, and hacking into the system slightly, he tagged it with Perceptor's name. He snickered and leaned back for his friends to read.
'I impress you all with my incredible memory capacity, as well as my unsurpassed ability to digest copious amounts of data concerning all topics relating to mech culture. I have ten certifications and my education speaks for my intellectual superiority. I can not only write incredible creative writing papers, but an entire book on multiple species' path of evolution!' (see BTW)
"That's not enough bragging, change ten to thirty five," Thundercracker snickered.
Skywarp smirked, the youngling's wings trembling with his silent laughs. "No, make it a hundred," he said.
With a slag-eating grin, Starscream changed it from ten to one hundred. Glancing up at his two friends, he waiting for their nods of approval, then he punched the button to post it.
"Oh, that's not enough though," Thundercracker snickered. Sliding into the seat next to Starscream, he logged into the system. Typing furiously for a few astrominutes, he stared in deep concentration at the screen. Finally, with a satisfied chuckle, he leaned back and let his two friends see what he'd done.
The red youngling leaned over, his optics getting bigger and bigger as he read. "No fraggin' way! Now you've got some serious afterburners to do THAT!" he snickered as he slapped his friend on his wing.
"You actually copied and pasted Perceptor's best paper and posted it as YOURS!?! Oh, that'll give him a glitch!" Skywarp joked. His optics were bright with approval for his friend's ingenuity.
Starscream got back on his console, typing furiously.
"What are you doing Scream?" Thundercracker asked, cocking his head in curiosity.
The red youngling looked sideways at him and smirked, "giving 'your paper' some positive comments."
Skywarp snickered, "Good idea Scream, I'll add a few more good comments." He sat down on the other side of Thundercracker and logged in.
"Tomorrow's going to be interesting," Starscream snickered as he posted his comment. Leaning back in his chair, he put his hands behind his helm and looked at his friends with an expression of triumph.
"I'm definitely not going to skip this time," Skywarp smirked. He was notorious for missing more classes than he attended, and his grades reflected it. But he really didn't care.
"Frag, Mrs. Beta probably doesn't even remember what you look like!" Thundercracker snickered. He ducked as Skywarp jokingly aimed a punch at his wing.
---
Perceptor came into class, sitting down without a word. Looking up from her desk, Beta studied the youngling. He seemed downcast and deep in contemplation over something. Cocking her head, the green femme wondered what was up with her best student, and since he was ten astrominutes early – she decided to ask.
"Something got hold of your meta, Perceptor?" she asked softly. Her blue optics scanned him as she tried to get a feel for his emotional state.
"No, no, nothing of importance," the youngling said without looking up.
"Are you still having problems with the grammar issues associated with dialogue?" she asked him. Picking up a stack of papers, she began to catch up her grading as she talked.
"No ma-am, since I took your advice and requested the assistance of good proofreaders, I haven't had much of an issue."
Beta smiled, the youngling was so well-spoken.. So far advanced of the other youngsters at his maturity level.. True, he'd had a little issue going from writing scientific grant requests, to writing creative papers – but he had been very eager, and willing, to find help. Perceptor'd really come a long way. And with his tenacity and obvious capabilities, she knew he'd go far. "So you're using more than one?" she asked. It was slightly unusual, since most proofreaders could handle the few papers a student normally put out. But Perceptor had turned into a highly prolific writer since he'd gotten his feet under him.
"Yes, I overwhelmed Jazz, so he asked Prowl to assist," Perceptor explained matter-of-factly.
"Then what's wrong? You know you might as well tell me, I'll end up finding out," Beta said as she finished up the first stack of papers and picked up the second.
Perceptor rubbed his hands together, he didn't want to sound like a protoform or anything, but whoever had posted those comments was way out-of-line. Should he tell the teacher? Yes, then she'd know that he hadn't posted them, even though the slaggers had signed it with his name. "Mrs. Beta, have you been on eLearn today?" he asked.
She shrugged "Not yet, I was going to check that everything that was due today was posted during my planning period." She picked up the last set of papers, very pleased that she'd be done before the class started.
"Well, before you do I need to inform you that there are comments posted on there with my name on them, that I did not post. Some mech left a not-so-nice comment on the paper I recently posted for review, and, well, someone plagiarized my fifth paper," he stated. He had a sneaking suspicion that he knew which of his fellow students had done it, and he doubted they'd show up in class today. Heck, they missed more classes than they attended!
Beta looked up at his words, her optics narrowing. Setting down the stack of papers, she spun her swivel seat around and faced her computer consol, swiftly; she was in the eLearn site and reading the recent comments. Her optics narrowed to slits as she used her administrator access to track down the students by their IP addresses who had posted them. She hated bullies above all else and to also have one of them show the audacity to copy Perceptor's work?!?! Outrageous!!
At that very moment, the rest of the class filed in. Twelve younglings sat down, including the three that Beta knew with great certainty – had done the evil deeds. She smirked inside, for she knew how to get juvenile delinquents' attention. Those three had no idea what they were in for…
Striding up to the front of the room, she began her standard morning routine. But as the younglings shuffled their paper and got out their notebooks, she walked over to the section that the 'trio' sat in, and stood menacingly over them.
"You little pieces of slag!" she growled, as they looked up at her with fake innocence in their optics. "You think Perceptor's arrogant because he's done so much? Perhaps it's not that HE'S arrogant – but that you three are jealous of him," she stated as a matter of fact.
"I'm not jealous of him, he's an aft!" Starscream dared to shoot back, "And he's a pathetic, worthless, over-educated Autobot – who just thinks he can write creatively!" He boldly met her optics, challenging her to prove him wrong.
She leaned down, her face a mere handspan from his. The entire class leaning forward to make sure their audios picked up every word she uttered. They all secretly despised Starscream, for he was constantly dissing anyone that dared to out perform him. Granted, in this class that was easy to do, since the slogger hadn't bothered to write a single paper! All he ever did was cause disruption and bully, and many had learned to just give him a wide berth. For the few that actually stood up to him, got beat up. No one had ever had the alloy to actually mention it to Beta! Glancing over at Perceptor, several younglings whispered behind their hands, for they were impressed that he'd done it.. He'd stood up and told her what was happening.
"For someone who can't write a single paper, you're very arrogant with absolutely no reason to be. And to have the audacity, to think you can break the rules and be a proofreader just shows how big your inflated ego really is," Beta said to Starscream, her tone showing her disgust at his feeble attempts to make himself seem better through the degradation of others. "Face it Starscream; everyone at the Academy KNOWS you're a pathetic waste of a good protoform, because instead of actually going through the trouble of learning and improving yourself – you spend all your time degrading others. Which just shows how low a self-esteem you have.. You will go nowhere in your life if you keep this up.. Nowhere but to end up off-lining with no mech even giving a frag!"
Starscream, Thundercracker and Skywarp ended up expelled from the Academy for their stupid pranks. They struggled to find jobs, struggled to make ends meet. Since none of them had actually graduated the Academy or gotten certificates of training, they were forced to start at the bottom. As mere grunts.. As mere E1's in rank…Unable to even afford their own quarters, the trio of young Seekers had ended up having to share quarters. They were all bitter about it.. Bitter about the apparent ease of success of the others who had finished their education; for the Seekers still truly believed that they were far superior to all others in every way.
Vorns later, Starscream threw the TV console out the window in a fit of rage.
"What the frag did you do that for?!? We can't afford another one!" Skywarp shrieked in dismay.
"I don't sloggin' care!" Starscream said as he stormed out of their shared quarters. He couldn't believe it! Couldn't believe what his optics had seen! That piece of slag who claimed to be a scientist had just won the Intersteller peace award – for a freagin' piece of creative writing based on a factual story!!! The red Seeker seethed in rage and jealousy, for in the end, it was Perceptor who had won.
----
Yep, I won.. I'm still here and publishing under my ORIGINAL penname.. Unlike others that have been bullied into changing pennames and publishing incognito. So go ahead, I know certain individuals are just dying to flame this one! Since they aren't busy publishing a single thing…
For those honest authors and loyal readers – I hope that you found this to be an amusing story. Sadly, many of the actions are based on real events.. So this is a FanFic based on fact..
BTW – I did use two pieces of 'reference material', but reworded them to avoid straight up plagiarism. If anyone would like to see the originals, I will PM them to you.