Disclaimer: I don't own Transformers, Hasbro does. I'm only borrowing them for a little while. No profit is being made of this by me. Its all fiction, and any resemblance to real people is accidental and unintentional. I own any OC's I create.
Summary: Miko Nakadai means ' Maiden matchmaker ' (according to Google). Miko decides to live up to her name by helping Jack win Sierra's heart.
~000~
MONDAY
~000~
Jasper High
"Listen up everybody, the school talent quest is in nine weeks. Applications for a place in the show need to be finalised by the end of next week. There are thirty six places, each item can be no longer than five minutes. Maximum number of members per group is twelve," Mr Edwards the new music teacher told the students as they tuned their instruments for orchestra practice. "Miss Nakadai, please leave Mr Conway's oboe alone!"
Miko signed overdramatically, as she slotted James Conway's oboe back into it's slot in the battered case by his feet. While she enjoyed music, they were currently practising for the school's annual musical. She'd tried to convince Mr Edwards and Ms Weiss to do the Rocky Horror Picture Show or Sweeny Todd, but they had gone with Sierra's suggestion of the Wizard of Oz instead. Totally not rocking! Now they only had six weeks until opening night.
After a cacophony of bum notes, the orchestra began their rendition of the first piece.
~000~
Miko packed up her electric guitar and music books, as she absentmindedly listened to the others gossiping.
"Did you hear Vince blew it with Sierra on their date?" Lindsay gushed to Mandy waving her clarinet in emphasis.
"No, what happened?" Mandy asked as she packed her flute in its case.
"Vince tried to go straight to third base on their second date. Sierra rammed her knee in his family jewels!" Lindsay giggled at the thought of the football captain getting his come-uppance.
"Sierra told me she would rather date a guy like Darby, but he's so shy, he'll never ask her out." Mandy told Lindsay, before noticing Miko. She stared at her for a moment thoughtfully then said, "Hey Miko, you're friends with Darby, do you think he likes Sierra?"
"He's like totally goo goo over her, but he totally loses the power of speech whenever she's within ten feet of him" Miko rolled her eyes as she thought of Jack's hopeless crush of the Cheerleader.
"Wanna help us set them up on a date?" Mandy asked Miko with a hopeful smile.
"Bring it on!" Miko cheered, "He totally needs a girlfriend, and she's his dream girl."
The cheerleaders giggled, and the three new matchmakers plotted as the left the gymnasium.
~000~
Outside the school's front steps, Jack and Raf waited for Miko. Raf was typing up his science homework on his laptop, while Jack tried to read a battered and worn school-copy of Macbeth for English. Hearing Miko's loud laughter caused both boys to look up from their homework. Seeing her arm-in-arm with Sierra's best friends filled Jack with a mixture of dread and curiosity. He watched as Miko cheerfully farewelled the girls and sauntered over to them.
"Joining the cheer squad Miko?" Jack asked cautiously.
"Nah, just found out from Mandy and Lindsay that Sierra likes you." Miko blurted out, grinning like a cheshire cat.
Miko promptly whipped out her phone and took a picture of Jack's bright red spluttering face. "Whoa, thats the money-shot!", as she laughed at her phone.
Pocketing her phone quickly, she was just about to say something else when the three bots rolled up to pick up their wards. The children quickly climbed in/on their respective rides and drove off.
~000~
KO Burger
Jack had work, so he was left to stew over what Miko had said until his shift at KO Burger was over. It was a Monday night, so there was plenty of time for his thoughts to turn themselves over and over in circles as he tried to think of how he could approach Sierra for a date.
With the need to help support his solo-mother, Jack had never made time for dating. He worked four days a week at the KO Burger, the rest of the time was spent at the Autobot base with Arcee, which was not really a place to pick up girls.
Jack spent much of his four hour shift trying to think of how he could fit Sierra into his already full schedule. He knew that Arcee didn't really like Sierra for some reason, so dating her could put a strain on his relationship with his Autobot guardian. He could only hope that the two-wheeler softened her stance against the stunningly beautiful cheerleader with time.
He knew Sierra liked to go to the old drive-in movie theatre on the edge of town, which would make a nice first date location. Maybe he could ask her to a Saturday night double-feature. The only issue would be getting a car. His mother needed her car to get to work, and didn't like Jack borrowing it. Maybe he could ask Bumblebee?
The next issue is what to wear. He still had those new jeans his mother brought him. They were a little tight, but not unbearably so. Maybe he'd splash out on a new t-shirt, and resurrect his dad's leather jacket. The once loved navy blue biker jacket was the only thing Jack had left of his father.
~000~
Autobot Base
"I'm telling you Bulk, all we need to do is hook Jack up with Sierra and that stick up his aft will magically disappear!" Miko waved her arms about, as she told Bulkhead about her talk with the cheerleaders.
"I don't know Miko, affairs of the spark are generally up to the mech and femme concerned..." Bulkhead let the rambuncious Japanese girl out of his alt-mode, before transforming to his full height.
"Look all I'm saying is we help him, he needs all the help he can get!" Miko began hauling her electric guitar out of its case. "Hey, we have the talent quest in nine weeks, what song do you think I should play?"
~000~
Elsewhere in the base, Raf had finished his homework, and had discreetly begun a new hidden file on Sierra on his laptop. School records, social media, financial details and government records quickly amassed as the thirteen year old performed a background check the C.I.A. would be proud of.
He discovered that both Sierra's parents worked at the military base that the Autobots were currently using, Sierra's mother Janet being one of the Mess cooks, while her father Geoffrey was a Corporal. Neither parent was cleared to know about the Autobots however, and further digging into their backgrounds revealed Geoffrey's familial ties to one of the businesses suspected of being linked to MECH. Sighing, Raf went to look for Optimus to get his advice.
~000~
Sierra's House
"Guess what Sierra!" Mandy gushed, as she waved a pompom at her best friend.
"Vince's privates got gangrene and dropped off?" Sierra grinned at her blonde childhood friend.
"Nope! I was talking to Miko at orchestra practice, and she told me Jackson Darby actually really likes you!" Mandy bounced onto Sierra's sofa, tucking her shoeless feet under her.
"Really?" Sierra looked shocked, then suspicious.
"Really!" Mandy replied, "If he thought you were interested, he'd totally ask you out."
"What about that chick that's always picking him up?" Sierra looked wary.
"His mom, or his auntie? His aunt is old, like nearly forty, she only looks good cause she's military like your dad." Mandy gave Sierra an amused look. "Seriously the only reason his Aunt Cee is always picking him up is because they are sharing that bike until Jack pays her back for the loan she gave him to buy it."
Sierra was about to respond when the doorbell rang. She quickly answered to door to the pizza delivery girl, and paid her. Taking the vegetarian supreme pizza in one hand and the large bottle of diet pepsi in the other, she bopped Mandy on the head with the box as she went to place their dinner on the coffee table.
~000~
Autobot Base
Optimus was busy typing yet another report for Agent Fowler to take to his superiors. It might be a different planet, but the paperwork appeared to be the same throughout the universe.
A gentle tapping on his pedes caused him to look down.
"Sorry to interrupt you, but I need some advice..." Raf adjusted his glasses nervously, as he gazed up at the Autobot leader. "There's this girl that Jack likes, and he wants to um... start um... maybe... dating her..."
"Matters of the spark are usually for those involved to concern themselves with Raphael" Optimus spoke gently to the tiny teenager as he scooped him gently and placed him on his desk.
"I wasn't planning to interfere, but I thought it a good idea to do a background check on her, just in case she's involved in something that could put the Autobots in danger. I checked out her dad. He works at this base, actually both her parents do. Its when I dug a bit deeper that I noticed that her dad's brothers own that company that Agent Fowler said were supplying MECH with their fancy uniforms and body armor. I'm worried that Sierra might be trying to get close to Jack to get closer to the Autobots for MECH."
"That seems unlikely, however I will ask Agent Fowler to keep a closer eye on her, and also her creators when they are on the base. If this girl is innocent then it will strain your friendship with Jackson if you accuse her unfairly," Optimus advised.
"Yeah, thats why I wanted to get your advice. Jack's been crazy about Sierra for as long as I've known him. I really want him to be happy." Raf blushed a little as he told Optimus.
After a much more detailed discussion about what Raf had uncovered, Raf left to find Bumblebee as it was getting late. Optimus finished his report, before doing some discrete datamining of his own about the situation.
~000~
It took Optimus a few hours (broken by Ratchet's insistence on him drinking a cube of energon with the other bots in Team Prime), but he was able to do a much more thoughrough background check on Jack's potential love interest.
A genealogy site which Sierra's mother subscribed to showed that in addition to Geoffrey's brothers owning a business that was suspected of supplying MECH with various sundry supplies such as uniforms and bodyarmor, Sierra's first-cousin-once-removed was none other than Leyland Bishop.
By the time Optimus had finished his data-mining he knew everything available about Silas's past. The rogue Colonel was the product of the rape of his mother Laura while she was in college. Laura and Leyland lived with her older sister Janis until Leyland was twelve years old, when she finally married Joesph Moore. Laura's new husband sent Leyland to a military academy in Colorado and to summer camp every summer vacation, thus Leyland only saw his mother again when he graduated. She died under suspicious circumstances (suspected domestic violence) shortly afterwards.
Leyland appeared to have a close bond with his Aunt Janis and her husband Eric, with academy records showing weekly phone calls and regular deposits into his school account in addition to regular parcels from their home during his schooling years.
Pictures on social media show multiple photographs of Leyland and his cousins George, Geoffrey, and Gregory at summer camp over the years as well, suggesting that Eric and Janis had sent their own sons to the same summer camps to keep Leyland connected to his family. Though perhaps the most concerning is a photograph of a baby Sierra in Leyland's arms with the caption "Sierra and her godfather".
~000~
Author's Notes
I'm planning for this story to encompass 12 weeks of Team Primes Lives. The story is set after the move to Unit E, but will focus mostly on the children and humans rather than the bots, who will make only periodic cameo's. I've already plotted out the first two weeks, and will update as I finish each 'day' in their lives. Expect this story to be a little soap opera-ish rather than action cartoon. Its about the human characters and their world rather than fast paced fight scenes. That said, their will be a few fights, and a few surprises too!