A/N: I'm not dead! Wooo!
But yeah, first I got my exam results back, and basically, I dominated. Then I decided, hey, let's make my readers happy too, you know, because I'm honestly very grateful for you guys.
SO!
Have this. *offers chapter wrapped up in flowery paper*
It has so much Chase that I literally had to put on a fedora to write it.
Obligatory Chase Storytime Scene
Chase slunk down the firehouse lift, hearing the sound of heated conversation and an old Fifties romance film.
Blades, rubbing at his slightly dented shoulder, was seated on the broken sofa, Dani lying shamelessly next to and indeed on him with a giant bowl in her servos.
"So what was that for again?" he asked.
Dani gave him a withering look and dinged him on the shoulderguard again. "F'r not t'lling meh tha' that would happ'n wh'n I touched my rot'rs!" she informed him through what was probably a mouthful of frosted Energon.
"But I did tell you! And you ignored me!" Blades pointed out.
"And how come I didn't feel anything when we were stuck together? You couldn't have completely avoided my rotors there." Dani swallowed and steamrollered straight over Blades' protests.
"Uh, well, bearing in mind your rotors were completely covered in sticky, red-hot sugar..."
"Shut up."
"Yes ma'am."
"But anyway! How come that was even a thing?! Why did you not tell me earlier?" Dani demanded.
"What was I supposed to say?" Blades countered, putting his servos up and waving them about. "Hey, Dani, look, this is how you do a self-induced overload!"
"Okay, okay. But," Dani suddenly realised, "you've cleaned your own rotors before, and nothing like that happened. At all."
"Uh, because I don't clean my rotors using long, sensual sweeps!"
"I did not use a long, sensual sweep." Dani sulked.
"Yes, you did." Blades nodded the nod of the mentally scarred. "Yes, yes, you did."
"So how do I do it properly, then?"
"You're asking me how femmes properly do a self-induced overlo-"
"No! What even, Blades? No! Of course not!" Dani exclaimed. "I can work that out in my own time, thank you very much!" she added in a mutter.
Blades looked even more scarred, if that was even possible.
Dani vented her systems. "How does one clean one's rotors without having multiple – what was the word you used? Overloads?" she asked Blades sweetly.
Blades twitched slightly. "You can, uh, turn off the sensors in your rotors when you want to, well, when you want to clean them."
"Was that so hard?!" Dani exploded, then calmed herself down. "How do I do that?"
"I am informed that there is a button located somewhere around the pelvic region, but, as the source of this information was Heatwave, I am inclined to disbelieve him." Chase put in, stepping out of the shadows.
"Chase! This is flyer talk time! Go and 1920s narrate yourself somewhere else!" Blades told him.
"Incorrect. I do not narrate myself." Chase blatantly lied. "Additionally, it would not matter if I heard you or not, as I record everything in the firehouse for my personal log. That is a little creepy, though, is it not?" Chase went on, tapping his chin in thought.
Dani wavered for a second. "Wait. That is creepy! You're creepy, Chase." she declared.
Chase nodded. "Yes. I am rather, aren't I?"
Heatwave and Boulder appeared, the former rubbing at patches of his paint that were flaking off steadily and leaving a winding trail of red flakes everywhere he went.
"That's an understatement." Heatwave grumbled. "Creepy doesn't even begin to cover the time he put cameras in all our quarters on the ship."
Dani sat down next to Blades. "Actually, since we're all here, and it's late, do you all want to have a Rescue Bots bonding night again?"
"Didn't we already do that when we told you about Blades' family?" Boulder asked.
"Well, yeah, and that was cool," (Blades developed a rather obvious sense of smugness), "but I want to know about all of you." Dani explained. Blades' rather obvious sense of smugness suddenly deflated.
Heatwave sat down on the edge of his training dummy's platform. "As the leader, I nominate Chase tells us about himself."
Dani's optics lit up with a gleam which edged itself onto the side of diabolical. "Ohhhh yes. I second that. What did you do before you were a Rescue Bot, Chase?"
Chase shuffled slightly awkwardly. "Well. Before I was a member of the team, I was a front-line trooper-"
Dani interrupted him. "Yeah, and you fought these Decepticons, blah blah. Before that."
"I went to the Academy, of course."
Dani's optics widened. "You went to Police Academy? THIS IS THE GREATEST STORY EVER. TELL."
Chase visibly slumped.
He had, of course, seen all 5 Police Academy films. And the animated TV series.
"So," Dani prompted, "you're at the Police Academy. Walk me through the social cliques and things."
"It was the Emergency Service Academy, and Cybertronians did not have these social cliques."
Heatwave scoffed. "We did. You can deny it all you like, but we did."
Blades raised an optic ridge. "You're only fine with it because you had a good group, Heatwave."
Chase looked incredibly like a small puppy who'd just been kicked. "Where do you wish to begin, Dani?"
AUTOBOT CHASE – MEMORY LOG – IACON EMERGENCY SERVICE ACADEMY
The cafeteria of the Iacon Emergency Service Academy, or the IESA, was filled with young Cybertronian cadets, all conversing happily with one another. They seperated themselves into several groups, each one reflecting either social interest or standing.
For example, upon one of the tables, there were a group comprised of largely bulky, heavily-built cadets, who were proficient in all physical activities, excepting high speed response, of course.
"The human word is ''jocks,'' Chase." Blades chimed in.
Ah. Of course. Thank you, Blades. They included in their number one particular crimson fire appliance by the name of Heatwave.
Dani waved an impatient servo. "Yeah, yeah, so Heatwave was a jock. Saw that coming. Move on."
However, let us return to the narrative. Another of these social groups were the huddle of largely secretive cadets who often painted themselves in darker, muted colours. A small proportion of these were hover-jet form flyers.
"And a hover-jet is?" Dani asked, leaning forward slightly.
A hover-jet is like an Earth helicopter, Dani. I apologise for not informing you of this earlier. Nevertheless, this social group were often rather reserved and downcast a large amount of the time. One in particular, whose name was Blades-
"OH. MY. PRIMUS." Dani squealed. "Blades was a goth in high school?!"
Blades regarded the floor pensively. "Maybe a bit."
Yes. As I was saying, the – as you call them, goths – kept to themselves mostly, with little interacting with the other social groups. Another table held the aficionados of the wild and COMPLETELY PROHIBITED social gatherings which habitually took place.
"Right, right, party circuit, boring. Where's Boulder? And where are you, Chase?" Dani whined ever so slightly.
Boulder was in an engineering school in Polyhex. And I am getting to myself.
*deep vent* Beside the downcast, there was a table which held the musically talented of the Academy. These cadets were rather low in the social order, as they were rather studious and musically focussed. At the back of this table, there sat a medium-sized blue-and-white painted four-wheeler who sat with his keytar across his back. His name was-
"CHASE! You were a BAND GEEK?!" Dani practically screamed. "This is WAY better than Blades being a goth!"
"Well, my self-esteem just took a major hike." Blades said.
"Calm down, Blades. I was a goth too. Now can we get back to Chase being a band geek?" Dani said, patting Blades absently on the dented shoulder.
Kade skidded into the room. "What? Chase was a band geek? God, he's worse than Graham, honestly. Anyway, we've got a situation down at the bank, it's those hoodie guys again."
"You mean Evan and Miles?" Dani asked. "Hang on. How the Pit do they keep getting out of jail?"
"Oh, the Mayor keeps accidentally signing their parole forms when he's drunk. It happens." Kade said dismissively. "Now can we go? They've stolen some kind of science doohicky."
"You're going to have to be more specific. It's Griffin Rock, you idiot. The entire island is dotted with some kind of science doohicky."
"Well, it's a dangerous kind of science doohicky."
"Still not very specific, Kade."
"Agh, let's just go already."
