Disclaimer: I do not own any part of the Transformers Franchise. The only thing I own are my OCs.
Miko started her out with a classic racing game, and since then Rhea was hooked. She'd jump at the chance to play anything, except first person shooter games. She took an instant dislike to them when Miko brought in a borrowed copy of the latest Call of Duty game.
For one thing, virtual reality did nothing to improve her aim. When Miko finally convinced Rhea to play a level she was barely able to hit anything, even when she picked up the most accurate and easy to use weapon. It got to the point where Miko, who normally would have been reveling in her victory, found it a little disappointing. What was the point of winning if there wasn't any challenge? Eventually the raven haired girl asked Rhea how she managed to hit anyone while she and Flare were escaping from MECH. The blonde pointed out that she had been shooting into a large crowd of soldiers and vehicles, so she was bound to hit something.
That was another reason Rhea hated the shooter games, and others like them. She hated being reminded of her and Flare's fight with MECH. She didn't want to think about how many people she knew that had been on the receiving end of those blasts. Everyone here knew of MECH soldiers only by their characteristic goggles and concealing masks, but Rhea could connect faces and names to many of them. Levi, Jawson, Shea, Hadley, and others, their faces visited her in her sleep, as did her father. When she thought of him, angry, betrayed, and disappointed in her, it felt like a fist was squeezing her heart.
She never told anyone though, not even Flare. The kind femme had her own worries, and shouldn't be burdened with Rhea's. Plus, she was afraid that if she started to express regret for what had happened the rest of the bots might get suspicious all over again.
With the gateway of gaming, Rhea had became a regular part of the kids after school activities. This was one of the few times that the young girl didn't seem overly pensive or nervous, and she even relaxed her perfect posture. Ratchet grumbled a little, saying that the kids were going to ruin Rhea's good work ethic. Even though she would immediately drop her controller if Ratchet needed anything, which was a pretty annoying when they were in the middle of a multi-player game.
Both the new human and the new bot were gradually becoming an accepted presence on the base. Rhea's new found love of video games gave her a way to casually connect with the other kids, and she'd even played a few games with Bumblebee. Ratchet actually didn't mind having her around since she was always so respectful and helpful, and like Raf she quickly learned all of his rules. Arcee had warmed up to her a bit too, though that was mostly because of her connection to Flare.
Flare was starting to find her own place as well. She was naturally accepted by Arcee, and the two of them could often be found chatting, laughing and training together. Flare finally got some space now that Rhea and the other kids were becoming more comfortable with each other, but the girl still hung out with Flare and liked listening to her stories. Ratchet treated the flame colored femme the same way he treated everyone, but she had a bit more patience for his gruffness then some bots. Flare also found herself getting along very well with Bumblebee, his optimism and sparkling like attitude fitting well with her own warm and comforting pressence. They shared a similar sort of wonder about life and it's little miracles, which was hard to find in many bots these days. With both Flare and Bee around the whole base seemed a lot brighter.
The only one Flare really wasn't sure what to make of was Bulkhead. The first few days the two of them really hadn't gotten along. Bulkhead didn't hide his suspicions about Rhea, or his opinion that Flare had been foolish to place such trust on her. This made Flare abnormally defensive of both her own decision and her charge. At least the others were trying to give them the benefit of the doubt. When he found out about how Miko had spent almost the whole afternoon alone with Rhea he was angry and told Flare to keep a better eye on her charge. Bulkhead of all bots was telling her to keep better track of her charge. Flare tried to keep Bulkhead, and herself, calm but eventually she had enough.
"Bulkhead, I understand that you're worried about Miko's safety and the base, but this is ridiculous! She's a child not a criminal! Besides, if we watch her every minute of the day how is she supposed to show that she can be trusted?" Flare demanded of the hulking green mech.
"How do you know she's not a criminal? She never talks about MECH, or tries to help us with them, so what is she hiding?" That brought the femme up short for a moment. She'd wondered about Rhea's past too, but the girl usually changed the subject if things were about to head in the direction of MECH or her family. Even though Flare was patient and shared some of her own history with her charge the girl was still having a hard time opening up.
"It's hard to leave everything you know for a new place and new people, she's still adjusting to it. She'll talk about them when she's ready." Flare was resolute.
"How do you know?" Bulkhead sounded exasperated "How do you know she's not using her little bit of freedom to map out the base so she can tell Silas all about it later? Or using her time with Ratchet to learn about our tech and find a way to contact her old friends?"
"I don't." Bulkhead stared at her, surprised she had admitted to that.
"Then why do you defend her so much?"
"Well, first of all, she's my charge. It comes with the territory. And more importantly, Rhea needs someone who trusts her right now, someone she can talk to. Besides, no matter who you decide to trust there's a good chance they'll end up hurting you. That's just what happens when you let someone get that close. I'd rather leave that door open, and deal with the good and the bad that comes through it, than keep it closed and get neither." The green bot couldn't think of anything to say.
Bulkhead's behavior began to change after that. It was clear that he still didn't like Rhea very much or trust her fully, but he eventually stopped sending her suspicious looks and didn't protest when Miko or any other kids wanted to hang out with her. Flare was pleased with his change of attitude toward her charge, but was confused by his change of attitude toward herself. She noticed that he seemed to start boasting more whenever he noticed her enter the room, or would sometimes become tongue tied when she joined a conversation he was having. She mentioned it to Arcee, but her friend just shrugged it off and said that Bulk had always been better with his cannons that with words. Flare couldn't help thinking it was more than that though.
LTHB
Bulkhead stood firm, his large pedes spread apart. His thick arms vibrated with the hum of his cannons, the air throbbed with energy blasts, and targets were blown to pieces. He'd missed this, it had been way to quiet recently. Target boards moved randomly in front of him, zig zagging, swooping, and rocketing up suddenly. Bulkhead grinned as he stepped forward to blast another target, it flew apart in a dozen black and white pieces. When they'd first moved into the base the shooting range mostly had stationary targets with only a few that would move back and forth or side to side at regular intervals. That might have been enough for human fighters and weapons, but bots like him needed something a bit more life like. The Doc had done a good job with the new movement system, but it wasn't as good as fighting a real Con. Nothing could compare a real battle, the heat, the chaos, the danger, the rush of taking down the bad guys and coming out on top. That's why he could never stay mad at Miko for sneaking through the ground bridge to watch them fight. She needed to learn to take it more seriously of course, but he couldn't blame her for wanting to be a part of that. Sometimes he thought that his charge had been born into the wrong species, if she were Cybertronian she could have made a scrapping good Wrecker.
The sound of the door opening distracted him, and made him miss a speeding target. He almost missed another when he quickly glanced to see who it was, he was a little surprised that it was Flare. He'd never seen her in target practice before. Come to think of it he'd only seen her in a real fight when they rescued her; which meant that she'd never really seen him in action either. The mech smiled to himself and increased power to his cannons, might as well give her a good first look.
He started to put more effort into his shots, making sure every one that he hit was either blown apart of struck down for good. He even let himself get a little flashy, doing over the shoulder shots and other tricks. Finally the targets stopped moving, the session was over. The green mech surveyed his work, and was pleased with himself. He'd missed several, but all the others clearly showed how much damage he could do. He turned to Flare, smirking in self approval at how impressed she looked.
"Hey Flare, haven't seen you in here before." He said casually.
"Yeah, Arcee and I usually like to train with close combat. I was supposed to meet her here, she must have gotten caught up with something."
"Well, I'm all done for now. I'll reset it so you can start." the mech lumbered over to a control panel on the wall. One of the new features the Doc bot had installed was difficulty levels, so you could choose between serious and casual practice. Bulkhead himself always trained at the highest levels, so he set it down a few for Flare. He'd seen her and Arcee sparring a few times, and he wasn't really impressed with the new bot. Arcee was amazingly adept with her kicks and blades, and by comparison Flare was uncertain and awkward. The fiery femme was quick like Arcee, but didn't have as much combat instinct. She was taken off guard by the blue bot almost every time. It was no wonder they trained in close combat so much, Flare needed it.
"I'd kind of like to choose the level myself." Flare interupted his thoughts. "I've been in here on my own a couple times, I know how the levels work." Bulkhead shrugged and stood back. Flare reached up for the panel, to his surprise she ended up picking the level he had just been training on. She moved to the center of the room, and took a fighting stance. Her visor whirred and clicked into place over her right optic, a great compliment to her focused expression. Bulkhead relaxed against the back wall to watch, and was amazed by the change that overtook the flame colored femme. As the targets appeared she on-lined her small blasters and swept the room with energon blasts. Every move was smooth and filled with purpose. When she needed a new angle she swiftly spun to a new location. Bulkhead had never noticed how graceful she could be. By the time all the targets stopped moving she was venting air heavier than normal, but her work had certainly paid off. She hadn't destroyed the targets like he did, but she had gotten a bull's eye on each of them.
"Whoa...that was, you were...uh..nice shooting." the green bot stumbled over the compliment. He received a shy smile in return.
"Thanks. I have my good friend to thank for it." She tapped her visor with one thin finger. "I was installed with a more advanced targeting system early on in the war, it got me into the position of sniper on most teams. It's a good thing I got it too, if I had to go servo to servo with all of the Cons we ran across I'd probably have gone offline pretty early." she looked down at the floor, and nudged a wrecked target with her pede. "You did a pretty good job yourself, I've never seen this much debris in a training room before. It's nice to know we've got such a power house on the team."
"Thanks." He said, looking away modestly. "Say, Flare, I know some stuff about close combat. It might help if you trained with someone beside Arcee now and then, so maybe you'd like to, uh, spar with me some time?" Flare nodded in approval, smiling warmly.
"I'd like that, it could help a lot."
"What could help a lot?" The two turned toward the door as Arcee strolled in. Bulkhead looked a little embarrassed, but Flare just smiled at her friend.
"Bulkhead was just saying that it might help with my training if I fought with different bots, so he's volunteered to help with that."
"Really? Well, he has a good point. You'll need to deal with a variety of fighting styles. I'll try and mention it to Bumblebee the next time I see him."
The three bots chatted for a little longer. Arcee got roped into helping Ratchet with a chore, along with Bumblebee, but she hurried over as soon as she could. They were just figuring out the target settings for the next round, when the sound of small pounding feet came form the hallway. The door was open slightly, and when the three bots turned around they saw two human shaped blurs rush past the door. Before they had a chance to wonder what that was about the two blurs came back, dissolving into Jack and Rhea as they stood panting in the doorway.
"We need a place to hide." Jack finally managed to get out.
"From what? What's wrong?" Arcee was instantly alert, looking for danger.
"From Miko." Rhea clarified, trying to catch her breath. The bots all gave them a confused look. When they heard another set of running feet in the distance the two humans gave each other a worried look.
"No time to explain. If Miko asks about us tell her we kept going down the hall." Jack said in a rush. The two humans humans ran in and dove behind the feet of their respective guardians. A few moments later a very peeved Miko appeared at the door.
"Are Jack and Rhea here?" she demanded.
"Uh, I think they passed by here a minute ago." Flare responded, gesturing to the direction the kids had originally been heading. Miko nodded and took off. A pair of relieved sighs came from near the Autobot's feet as her footsteps faded.
"Alright, what did you do?" Arcee gave the hiding humans a skeptical look.
"Hey this isn't all our fault!" Jack said defensively.
"We all decided that it became necessary." Rhea nodded in agreement.
"What became necessary?" Bulkhead questioned, a little suspicious himself.
"Maybe we should have them start at the beginning." Flare intervened. All three bots looked at them expectantly. Jack scratched the back of his neck nervously.
"Well, I guess it started while we were doing homework earlier today."
(flash back)
Jack flipped through pages of brightly colored ocean animals swimming through turquoise water, trying to decide which ocean animal to do a report on for his Biology class. Raf, who was speeding through his math homework, was sitting next to him in the middle of the couch, and Miko was on the other end. She was staring at her history book lying open on her lap, whether or not she was actually reading it was questionable. Rhea was there too, sitting on the floor with her back against the end of the couch and looking through some of Jack's text books. He let the blonde borrow them whenever she came to their homework sessions. One of the few things she'd been willing to share about her past was that she had been home schooled, so she was curious to see if an actual school would have taught her anything different. Jack had been amused when she said that there didn't seem to be much of a difference between the two. He told her that it wasn't the books that made going to school different.
Jack paused on a page depicting a nautilus, this one might work well for his project. He took in it's curved shell and the ninety little tentacles surrounding it's mouth, and smiled a little. With all the crazy sci fi stuff that happened around here it was strangely comforting to be reminded that there was plenty of weird things right on planet Earth.
"Do we get a study break yet?" Miko asked hopefully.
"We haven't been working that long, have we?" Raf looked up from his equations. Jack checked the time on his phone.
"Well, it has been a little over an hour since we started. We could stretch our legs at least."
"Great!" Miko slammed the book shut and hopped off the couch. "I have a perfect idea for what we can do."
"Miko, we already agreed we'd save the video game tournament until after our homework is done." Jack pointed out. Miko shook her head, making her pigtails bob.
"Not that, I think we should try cooking!" Her excited explanation only got her confused looks from the boys. "Didn't Rhea tell you? She found a kitchen in one of the back areas of the base yesterday." Rhea nodded as she put down Jack's world history book.
"Why didn't you tell us?" Raf wondered. Rhea gave a small shrug.
"It didn't seem that important. I only told Miko because she asked me what I'd been up to the day I found it. The water runs, but the refrigerator and freezer aren't on. I also found several cooking tools that had been left behind, which really makes me worried about your government's organizational abilities."
"Talk, talk, talk." Miko rolled her eyes. "Let's get started already. I brought in a bunch of food from home and put it in our snack fridge, we can use that for ingredients."
Jack wasn't sure at first, since he wasn't sure if any of them knew much about preparing food. But he had prepared a few meals for himself when his Mom had to work late, and Rhea admitted that she'd done her fair share of kitchen duty at MECH, so he let himself be talked into it. Besides, it was one of the few times he'd seen Miko excited to learn about something other than battles or explosions. So a few minutes later the kids found themselves sorting through a pile of ingredients trying to think of what they could make.
The kitchen wasn't much to look at, being built for efficiency rather than looks. It was basically a scaled down version of a typical cafeteria style kitchen. Lining the walls there was an oven and stove, a large sink, some cupboards, a dish sanitizer, and doors leading to the pantry, supply closet, refrigerator and freezer, all made of stainless steel. In the middle of the brown tiled floor was a long metal table, which the random bags of food currently rested on.
Jack decided that it would be best to leave the stone alone since it was their first try, so he convinced everyone to help make a fruit dessert that his Mom made for special occasions. His mom kept sending fruits and vegetables with him to base, trying to get the kids to eat more healthy food, so they had plenty of that. Miko had managed to pilfer enough sugar and other random ingredients to make up the rest of what they would need. Once that was decided they moved all the extra food and ingredients they wouldn't need into the empty pantry, so they would have enough room to work. To Jack's surprise things went pretty well, for a while.
Raf was assigned the task of mixing the ingredients together in a large bowl, while the older kids worked on cleaning and chopping the fruit. After a little minute Rhea sighed and stopped chopping the apple, the knife she'd chosen had too short a handle and it was making her hand cramp.
"Hey Miko? Could you get me a different knife from that cupboard next to the pantry, please?"
"Sure." Miko replied happily, bouncing off to the cupboard. A moment later Rhea heard her say "Here it is!" Rhea turned around to accept it.
"Thanks, M- GAH!" the blonde yelled in surprise and jumped away, her back hitting the table. The way Miko was holding the knife the blade was pointing right at Rhea, and she had almost run into it when she turned around. When her back hit the table the jerk made Raf slip off the stool he was perched on, taking the mixing bowl with him.
"You okay Raf?" Jack asked, helping him up. Thankfully the bowl had dumped it's contents on the floor rather than the boy.
"Yeah, I'm okay." he brushed himself off, looking a little embarrassed "Sorry about the mess."
"No problem, it should be pretty easy to clean up." Jack looked up from the smaller boy the the two girls. "And Miko, holding the knife with the blade pointing down is usually a pretty good way to avoid accidentally stabbing people."
"Yes Mom." Miko playfully rolled her eyes, and put the knife on the table. "I'll make it up to you by getting the towel." She strolled into the nearby supply closet. Jack looked at the semi-solid mess on the floor, a mop might work better. As Rhea cleaned up the table he went over to the closet to look for one. Just as he was about to enter, Miko came out. The door slammed into Jack and sent him sprawling. Miko looked down at him.
"You really should watch where you're going." she quipped.
"I'll do that." Jack said in good humored sarcasm.
Those first few accidents were quickly forgiven, unfortunately that wasn't the end of it. Over the next twenty minutes there were an array of mishaps and near accidents, most of them caused by Miko. Rhea started to hint that this was starting to take a while and it might be better if they finished later, but Miko insisted that they were close enough to being done that they might as well finish now. Just after this was decided Miko accidentally spilled a cup of boiling water onto Rhea's arm, making her yell in pain. As Jack checked the damage he and Rhea exchanged a few words, and came to a decision.
"Miko, could you find Ratchet and ask for a first aid kit?" Jack asked "Rhea has a light burn on her arm, the kit should have something for it." Miko agreed, and ran out the door. The Asian girl was starting to feel a little bad about all the accidents, but she was sure the others wouldn't get too mad at her. Besides, she figured it was kind of better this way. When things go perfectly they get boring. Miko found Ratchet in the main control room.
"Hey Doc!" She called up. "You got a human first aid kit lying around?"
"Is one of you hurt? Do you need help?" He asked, gruffness disappearing in his concern.
"It's nothing too bad, we were just messing around in the kitchen and things got a little out of hand. So you got one?" The medic frowned.
"Well, yes. But I already gave Rhea a medical kit to put in the kitchen." He shook his helm, then dug out kit from a cupboard near the ground. "Maybe it was moved. You can take this one to them."
"Thanks Doc bot!" Miko called and bounded back to the kitchen. She reached to kitchen door, but when she turned the handle the door wouldn't budge.
"Guys! I got the kit!" She called through the door. There was no answer. She called again, but still nothing. She tried the door again, trying to figure out what was wrong with it. Then she finally figured it out, it was locked from the inside. Suddenly everything clicked, all the accidents, sending her for a first aid kit they were supposed to already have- they had locked her out!
"No Fair!" Miko shouted through the door angrily.
(end of flash back)
"When we finally finished we came out, but Miko was waiting for us. She started yelling again and started chasing us, and well, you know how it goes from there. Don't know why she let Raf off the hook so easily, maybe because he was holding the dessert." Jack finished awkwardly. Everyone was quiet for a minute.
"Okay, the first thing we're going to do is confiscate those knives you were talking about." Arcee spoke up.
"And then I think you all need to get together and apologize to each other." Flare said sagely.
"We didn't mean to hurt her feelings, and we tried to say sorry for locking her out but she was too busy yelling at us." Rhea looked down sadly. She felt a little guilty. She had growing to like Miko, with her lighthearted attitude and randomness, but when it came to kitchens that girl was a menace!
"Give her some time to cool down, she'll be a lot easier to talk to then." Bulkhead advised. He wasn't really upset that the kids had put his charge on the rampage. He knew the kind of temper she had, her anger would fizzle out quickly once she had burned through it. But it turns out Miko wasn't ready to cool down just yet.
"There you are, you traitors!" The kids spun around to see Miko fuming in the doorway. The chase began once again, Jack and Rhea fled into the field of destroyed targets with Miko in hot pursuit. "How dare you lock me out! The whole thing was my idea in the first place!" She yelled as she ran. Jack tried to get her to calm down and Rhea kept up a string of constant apologies, while the bots looked on in mild amusement.
"Maybe we should have to Doc bot try to make a practice level that looks something like this." Bulk joked as the humans ran wildly. The femme bots smiled.
"Now that would be a life like setting." Arcee agreed.
Well, there's my attempt at original humor, I hope it managed to be amusing at least. :)
Sorry for the long wait for this chapter, college has a way of eating into my fan fiction time. We'll get back to main plot in the next chapter.
And on a side note, HOORAY! Season two has finally premiered! And by the looks of it this season will continue to be awesome and epic. :D
