Chapter: 9
I gawked at the perfect, metallic replica of a Decepticon insignia. I tried to form words to ask what he was doing with a Decepticon insignia branded on his arm.
And when I finally managed to form words, all I was able to choke out was, "Why?"
Jared shifted and took the jacket off, not needing it now that he had nothing to hide. I was very ridged with both fear and worry.
Fear of why someone—or something—would do this to my best friend. Worry for the answer to which why Jared was branded with a Decepticon insignia.
"I don't know," Jared answered bitterly, "I don't know why any of this is happening to eitherof us."
I hung my head, understanding his bitterness and that he wasn't meaning to take his anger out on me.
"That would make two of us, then." I admitted softly.
Jared gently cupped his hand under my chin and raised my head so he could look me in the eyes. I allowed myself to make eye contact with him to see the seriousness and concern that shone in his eyes.
"What's wrong?" I asked him after I had made eye contact with him.
"What ever it is that did this to me," he whispered cautiously, "I think it's work here isn't finished yet..."
"Why would you say that?" I asked him, matching the tone of his whisper.
"Because," Jared's whisper was hardly audible this time, "it hasn't left yet. It's hiding somewhere in the house."
"How do you know?"
"Everything was locked when I woke up, and there was no other way for anything to get into my house." Jared replied before looking at the silver tattoo.
I felt like something was watching me and snapped my head over to a computer desk that sat in a corner. There I saw a silver boom box sitting in a way that suggested that, if it was alive, it was listening in on our conversation. But that wasn't what threw me off. No, the fact that Jared didn't listen to music much, especially in his house, but even then he usually used his television, not a little, silver boom box.
"Since when did you have a boom box?" I asked, stabbing my chin in it's direction as I did so. Jared's head immediately snapped up to look at me with confusion.
"Boom box?" He asked, as if clarifying that he had heard me correctly, "What boom box?"
"That one, the little silver one, sitting there on your desk." I pointed at it and looked at Jared for his expression.
"That's not my boom box," Jared muttered under his breath, clutching his left hand over his metal branded arm, "I don't have a boom box."
I looked at him through narrowed eyes, inspecting him as if he was going crazy. He wasn't looking at me, though.
Then Jared suddenly sprang to his feet, grabbing the broom that was leaning on the arm of the couch as he did so.
Startled, I turned to see what could have caused him to have reacted the way he did. I met four glowing blue eyes that were on a narrow, metallic, insect-like body.
I was on my feet in a split second, just as Jared grabbed my arm and yanked me behind him, baring the broom as if it were a sword. The little spider-like-bot took a fighting stance and—after some sharp, round disk-like things had slid down into his hands—charged.
"No you don't," Jared growled as he took a swing at the fast approaching, terror bot.
The little silver Cybertronian ducked the first time, but took a heavy blow from the back swing. He was sent flying into Jared's room and he ended up crashing, face first, into the wall which Jared hung all his swords that he collected throughout his whole life since he was six. The silver Cybertronian cursed in Cybertronian before the rough impact that caused the whole house to shake and the wall of swords to come falling down, littering the silver robot with swords, some sharp and some dull.
"Come on, let's get out of here!" Jared yelled after the Cybertronian had made impact. Jared turned around and grabbed my shoulders, turning me around and urging me hurriedly out the door. The moment we were outside I realized that, through all the chaos and hasty retreat, Jared had left his jacket inside the house.
"The Decepticon insignia," I warned the moment we were racing across the grass in Jared's front yard.
"Oh," Jared nearly stopped, but I could tell he fought the urge to do so, "I'm as good as fried the moment either of your 'guardians' catch even the slightest glimpse of it."
"No, they won't hurt you, I won't let them," I tried to reassure him as we reached the sidewalk.
"What's wrong?" Jazz asked immediately.
"There's this little silver boom box Cybertronian that attacked us!" I explained with exasperation, "It had blue eyes! I thought you guys were supposed to be the good guys?!"
"The Autobots are not to blame for anything Frenzy does. He may have blue optics, but he's no Autobot." Prowl growled, already having transformed the moment I had said 'boom box'.
"Heads up!" Jazz warned, almost fully transformed into his Cybertronian form, "You guys get to the other side of the street and stay put, we'll handle this."
"Wait," Prowl suddenly ordered with surprise, "there's no need, looks like Frenzy's trying to scamper away, probably back to report to Barricade."
"Barricade?" I asked with surprise, "I hardly believe that he would send Frenzy here to spy, especially on a human."
"Alexis is right, Prowl," Jazz dropped his fighting stance and watched Frenzy try to slip out of the house unnoticed. "I just wonder what he was after if he wasn't there under the order to spy..."
"Well, so do I," Jared piped in, then he removed his hand he had put over his arm to hide the Decepticon insignia that Frenzy had branded into his upper arm with metal. "One thing I do know is that he branded this into my arm with metal and then sabotaged my air conditioner."
"That isn't anything like what Barricade would send Frenzy out to do," Jazz pondered, "So we now know that Barricade defiantlydid not send Frenzy here to do what he did and whatever else he might have done."
Prowl scoffed as Jazz finished what he was saying. I glared at Prowl through narrowed eyes, causing him to stare into my eyes with his defiance-filled ones. I crossed my arms and jutted my jaw in defiance, trying to out last the bigger Cybertronian. Prowl matched my defiant stance with one of his own.
He clutched his hands into fists and stiffened them down by his side, spread his legs a bit more apart, and grimaced down at me. It might have looked more defiant had it been directed at someone taller or even the same size as him, but it almost looked funny with how much he had to glare downward to be glaring at me.
Jazz and Jared watched the two of us try to stare down the other, even Frenzy was transfixed by the 'staring contest'.
"Okay," Jazz demanded sternly, "stop it you two, that's enough, this is exactly why you two weren't allowed to be left alone, one of you were bound to kill the other."
Neither of us even twitched in acknowledgment of Jazz's demand. I hardly even saw Jazz's ear twitch with irritation at being ignored.
"Fine, the hard way it is," Jazz muttered under his breath before stepping deliberately in between us. Turning to face Prowl first, Jazz put his hands on his hips and glared at Prowl from under his vizor.
Prowl didn't hold Jazz's glare very long, he almost immediately hung his head in submission. Jazz nodded his head in approval before turning around to face my still defiant stance. Though this time he didn't place both his hands on his hips, but he crunched one into a fist and hung it by his side, leaving only his left hand on his hip. And instead of a disapproving glare I received a glower of superiority, and clearly shown dominance.
But I was used to glares of dominance, I've adapted to my fathers' and my mothers' glares when I give them defiant looks, I've found two things that worked, one was dropping all the defiance from my features and adopting an innocent look and the other was to switch my defiant stance to a different one, or, if I'm not at my highest level of defiance, to jump to the most defiant I could be without being considered talking-back.
I didn't want to look like I was submitting, and acting innocent wouldn't work this time because I wasn't trying to get something I wanted. I was earning my rank of respect and teaching them how much they can push me until I either snap or submit. Acting innocent would only cause me to be pushed to the bottom and make it look like I'm easily convinced to do or not do something.
I decided to stick my left foot outward and point the toes off to the left, but I kept the rest of my body facing Jazz and placed my hands on my hips as I shifted all my weight to my right foot. I kept my jaw jutted out and I hardened my glare into a glower.
Jazz seemed at once surprised but unsurprised, as if he expected defiance from me, but not for me to be as good at it as if I've been given the same look he was giving me my whole entire life. Jazz decided that then would be a good time to remove his vizor and squint at me. I just narrowed my eyes and imagined he was Prowl so I could send some of my own dominance out onto the playing field.
I chose Prowl to use first because I was just a bit more dominant than he is, and I was curious whether showing dominance would even out the playing field a bit more. I saw Jazz's ear twitch, but whether it was with surprise, amusement, or worry, I was not sure. But I decided to try and push forward some more.
This time I pictured Avalanche and how he obeyed every command my father and I gave him. I pushed that dominance out and noticed Jazz's tightly clenched fist loosen and his ear twitched again.
I could hardly hear Prowl and Jared placing bets on who will win the 'staring contest', but I picked up enough to know that Jared was betting on me to win and Prowl on Jazz to win, by a long shot. Knowing that Jared still had faith in me enough to place a bet on me gave me even more determination, and I decided to picture all my friends and I walking together, with me more in front than anyone else.
I bundled everything that made me feel like I was dominant together and forced it all out and around me, making the air surrounding me an air of dominance. I stared at Jazz, watching him as he slowly lost his defiant stance.
His ear twitched several times, then his hand that was in a fist fell apart and just hung by his side limply, and that's when he just let both his hand on his hip fall to his side and the vizor slide back down into place.
"Alright, way to go Alexis!" Jared whooped as he jumped up from sitting on the curb to throw his hands in the air.
"Dang," Prowl muttered, "She outlasted Jazz, there's very few who ever have done that, and one of those few is Optimus."
"Wow, I've never came across someone as dominant as you, and the fact that your human..." Jazz trailed off, lost in his amazement at my beating him.
"Never?" I asked, confused, "What about Optimus?"
"Well, aside from him, the only other Cybertronians that can stare me down are Decepticons." Jazz replied, amazement still evident in his tone.
"Only Decepticons...?" I gulped, "Like who?"
"Oh, Starscream and I tied, but other than that, pretty much everyone else has beaten me, and I was basically slayed by Megatron, but that's understandable, since he is the leader of the Decepticons." Jazz answered, still quite excited about being beaten for some odd reason.
"What's got you all hyped up?" I asked him, concerned that he might have just gone completely crazy.
"You showed more dominance than Optimus normally has," Jazz explained, he was all but flying with his uncontrolled excitement, "and I could sense that it wasn't even close to half as much dominance that you could manage."
"What?!" Jared, Prowl, and I exclaimed at the same time, glancing at each other in disbelieve of what we had just been told.
"Um, should we allow Frenzy to hear this and then go and report it back to the Decepticons?" I asked as I watched the little spider-bot go scurrying down the sidewalk, not nearly as fast as he could.
"No," Both Prowl and Jazz replied with a questioning look.
"Well, then, we'd better stop him," I advised as I pointed at his small form that was even smaller because of the distance that was now between him and I.
"Let's go catch us a bug." Jazz called out, transforming into his alternative form, opening his doors for Jared and I to climb in and buckle up.
Then we were off, and chasing the so-called 'bug'.
