Hey looky! An update! Okay, thanks to everyone who read and reviewed and like this, ya'll are wonderful.
Also, Prowl's name isn't very traditional, in Cybertronian terms. So he'd probably get a lot of grief for it, especially when he was younger.
"Alright!" Jazz turned towards the small assembly, after having spoken quietly with Mirage for a few moments. "Welcome to Iacon. Ah'm Jazz, and ya'll are very lucky Ah've come along to save ya from some boring speech about duty and honor and all that."
On the other side of Bluestreak, Prowl heard Sideswipe snicker and comment to Bluestreak about the word 'duty.' Prowl didn't understand the comment, but he broke his focus on Jazz to glare at the red mech. How utterly rude of Sideswipe to poke fun at this mech's presentation.
Fortunately, Sideswipe noticed the withering look and grew suddenly very interested in his peds. Of course, this only caused Sunstreaker to snort, but that wasn't relevant to Jazz, so it didn't matter.
Satisfied, Prowl turned his attention back to Jazz. Only, when Prowl looked back, Jazz was looking at him expectantly, as though he had asked Prowl a question. Prowl stared back at Jazz for a few tiks, and when he saw the grin that the visored mech was so obviously holding back, he felt a certain dread rising in his chassis.
Prowl cleared his vocalizer and glanced around to see all other mechs (and femmes, Primmusdamnit!) looking at him also. Oh, how very lovely. He, of all bots on the trip, of all the bots in the entire academy, he had managed to make a fool of himself. In front of a mech as exquisite as Jazz, no less!
He cleared his vocalizer once more and very hesitantly spoke. "Pardon?"
"We're all gettin' to know each otha'. We've got Wires, Barricade, Starlight, and you." Jazz indicated each bot in turn, finishing with a servo gesture towards Prowl, indicating that it was his turn to introduce himself.
So not only did he manage to make a complete and utter fool of himself, but he also got to announce his ridiculous name in front of everyone. Surely, this day could not get worse.
Preparing himself for the certain further humiliation, he spoke. "Prowl."
Yep. It was there. The barely contained laughter from the three bots on the other side of the room. He knew it was coming. Every time he introduced himself to someone new, they always mentioned the fact that his name wasn't normal, or went to extremes to explain that it wasn't a bad name, just unusual. Why couldn't his creators have chosen a name like Monochrome or something? That would have been just fine.
Normally it was Bluestreak who would come to the rescue, diving in and rambling about how lots of bots didn't have normal names, because to be perfectly honest, Prowl didn't know how to defend himself from that. Yet another reason they were so close.
Optics anywhere but directed at Jazz, Prowl waited for him to move on to asking Bluestreak his designation.
But he didn't.
As the contained laughter grew to be not-so-well-contained, Prowl started wishing he could just disappear. Speaking of disappearing, that Mirage had managed to somehow vanish from Prowl's doorwing sensor net without him noticing. Lucky fragger.
After 1 breem and 27 tiks (Prowl knew, he counted), Jazz cleared his vocalizer. It was the kind of vocalizer-clearing that told everyone who was doing something they shouldn't be that they had better stop and focus on the one who had cleared their vocalizer. Prowl's professor used that particular sound almost on a regular basis.
The sound immediately grabbed every bot's attention. Very hesitantly, Prowl looked up at Jazz, who was focused on him. Him. Prowl felt his temperature increase a few tenths of a degree. It would surely rise more if Jazz kept staring at him.
Prowl waited for Jazz to speak. That visor was infuriating. Normally, Prowl could read a mech like a book, because optics are expressive. But because Jazz had his covered, Prowl had no clue what was going on in that processor.
Then a thought struck him. Was he...? No! He couldn't!
A surge of fear caused Prowl's doorwings to quiver unconsciously as he looked into that...deep blue visor...
"That's a very lovely name, Prowl."
Prowl blinked. The melodious voice had snapped him out of his focus on the visor. What had he missed? Something about names...
No! Jazz was going to-
But he hadn't.
He had done something no other adult bot had ever done before. Prowl watched as Jazz let Sunny and Sides introduce themselves. Prowl often got teased and picked on because of his rather unique designation. It certainly wasn't anything like the more traditional names of his classmates. Adult bots tried to help by explaining that names were something to be proud of and the like, but all they ended up doing was isolating Prowl from his fellow students because the effort labeled him as a "teacher's pet." So eventually he isolated himself before the same disaster could do it for him. Bluestreak was the only one who kept talking to him, so Blue became the one Prowl looked to for help when it happened. It didn't happen as often in the mechling academy as it did in the sparkling academy, but a few times was enough.
Jazz had managed to save Prowl from absolute humiliation without doing any damage. Prowl couldn't help but feel slightly awed at what the mech had accomplished with only six words. And Jazz had done it for him. The thought made Prowl's spark-and his doorwings-flutter.
"Right, now that we've all gotten to know each other, we're goin' to split into two groups for tours. 'Raj should be back any breem now-" As if on cue, Mirage entered the room. "Oh, good. Mirage and mahself will each lead a group, so divide yo'selves!"
Seeing as the group was pretty much already divided, it was less that a breem before Mirage was leading Barricade and the two femmes out into the hall. Very soon, after a minor shove fest between the twins, Jazz was holding the door open for Prowl's group.
As Prowl shyly smiled and thanked Jazz for holding the door open, his thoughts wandered back to earlier. Surely Jazz had known what would have happened. Maybe he had even experienced it himself. After all, 'Jazz' isn't exactly a traditional designation either.
Wires and Starlight are just names from the top of my head. I was going to make it Ironhide and Blaster with Barricade, but then I remembered that I'd made such a point to include the femmes, and if I made that point and there weren't any femmes, then it would be pointless. Then I was going to make it Chromia and Arcee, but I don't know if they would laugh or not, so I just came up with two minor OCs. Feel free to use the names if you like them.
Isn't Jazz nice?
1/10-Hey, guys! Sorry about chapter 3. I had it up for a while, but it was bugging the pit out of me, so right now it's down for maintenance. I should have it fixed soon.