Skydive smirked a little at the mixed reaction from his students to the classroom bell - cheers and grins from those whose testing datapads were already on his desk, groans and a more frantic pace of typing from the rest. "All right. Those of you who are finished, have a good night, and I should have your grades by tomorrow." He waved them on to leave, watching as they packed up their belongings and headed out.
"Those of you who aren't finished, well..." Skydive made a show of glancing at his arm chronometer. "I don't really have anywhere important to be any time soon, so I..."
"Should inform them that your plans have suddenly changed," a voice interrupted smoothly. Skydive glanced over and spotted a figure that had become all-too-familiar in recent times, one who had apparently snuck in amongst the crowd of departing students.
He sighed inwardly, then looked back at his remaining students and made a beckoning gesture. "Yes, it seems that they have. Make that, everyone hand in your tests as they are, and I'll have them graded... within a few days." The chorus of groans started up again as one by one the students reluctantly handed in their datapads and filed out the door.
After the last student had left, the figure offered, "A few days? You really force them to be in suspense for that long?"
"I would have them graded tonight, but..." Skydive leaned back in his chair slightly. "Apparently, 'my plans have suddenly changed'." He tossed a sardonic smile at his visitor - one of the many assistants of the equally numerous Senators. He didn't even know his visitor's name, as the assistant never seemed to be in the mood for small talk. Assuming he even had a name... for all Skydive knew, the Senators' assistants were metallic manifestations of pure elemental bureaucracy.
The assistant smiled slightly in acknowledgment of the successful retort, then continued, "I would think you'd be honored, Professor... that your aerial strategic abilities are so successful and highly regarded. You especially seem to be quite talented at countering these 'Seekers' that the enemy is employing. Almost as if... you had access to some valuable inside information that the Senate does not."
Skydive chuckled dryly. "As a matter of fact, I do have some 'inside information'. But how I came by it isn't nearly as glamorous as any reasons you might be implying."
"It wasn't my intention to imply anything... but, now that you mention it, I would be curious as to how you came by having this inside information."
Skydive responded by opening one of his desk drawers and pulling out a thin rectangular device. It produced a light display over its surface once it was activated, and he thumbed the wheel at the bottom edge until it showed the specific image he needed. He then proffered it to the assistant, who accepted and looked at it curiously. It was currently showing a page with a picture of three similarly-built jet-formers with different color schemes, smirking and mugging for the camera. Below that were various notes scribbled with a stylus:
"I'm allowed to fly circles around you now, Prof. And I will."
"I would pay to see you try, Starscream."
"I could warp circles around them both."
"I'm not sure one can technically 'warp circles', either."
"Thunder, stop being a killjoy."
"Hmm." The assistant looked up and returned the "yearbook". "They were your students, then?"
"Yes." Skydive took the yearbook back and smiled with fond sadness at the picture. "Top of their class, even. The best and the brightest. Well..." He chuckled a little. "Skywarp was a brilliant flier, but not all that bright otherwise, admittedly."
"Apparently none of them were all that bright, if they decided to join the Decepticons."
"Don't be so sure. The promises their leader has been making - of freedom and a better lot in life - have a certain allure."
"Don't tell me you're tempted."
Skydive gestured at the Autobot symbol he'd started wearing not that long ago. "I know my own place, in more ways than one. I'm just saying that their choice is not necessarily a foolish one."
"And how many of your current students have made that same choice?" The assistant pointed his chin at the empty desks.
"That's not my place to ask unless any of them volunteer it. Which they haven't."
"So, it's your place to teach them strategy, but not how they should use it?"
"Exactly. Would you have me live my students' lives for them? Do all the thinking for them?"
"Quite frankly, yes. We're trapped in a war that shows every sign of lasting a lot longer than we thought it would, and being a lot more destructive. If we don't do the thinking for these students, the Decepticons will be all too happy to instead."
Rather than the reproval Skydive would have expected from this point, the assistant's voice seemed to hold a note of... fear, instead. And worry. It made him feel an odd measure of pity for his visitor. Perhaps the assistants were real people after all. "Unfortunately, I think you may be right." He deactivated the yearbook and placed it back in the drawer. No point in brooding over the past; there was plenty of present and future to brood about instead. "Shall we get going? Let me close up."
"Indeed." The assistant turned and headed out the door. Skydive spent a few moments gathering the testing datapads into his storage compartments, then started to head out himself. He paused in the doorway long enough to stare at the empty desks.
How many of these desks will be permanently empty one day? And for what reasons? he wondered. He shook his head sadly, then thumbed the light switch and headed out. Only time would tell...
Closing Note: This idea was based on a recent fan comic project where we had to submit scripts that take place right after Megatron: Origin in IDW continuity and focus on a single character's first days in the Great War. We were only allowed to submit three scripts, but I still had more characters I wanted to explore the prompt with, so I've decided to write some prose stories.
I'm an Aerialbot fan, so Fireflight was one of the characters I wrote scripts for, and I thought it would be interesting to do something for Skydive, too. Since in the IDW continuity the Aerialbots are just "normal" Cybertronians (well, Silverbolt is, at least - we haven't seen the others yet), I thought it would be an interesting challenge to figure out what their personalities might be like and what they might have done before the war. Since Skydive is the sort of character who's talented and knowledgeable, yet modest and somewhat self-conscious about those skills, I thought being a teacher might be a good fit for him. I then thought it might be potentially interesting if he had taught aerial strategy to the most notable trio of Cybertronian fliers... and the rest of the fic fell into my head from there.