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Chapter 14: Your New Family

One would think that coming here they'd meet a lot of bots. That they'd even make friends on the first day and that everything would be fine afterwards.

Well, it wasn't exactly like that.

After we have been given the tour of the Academy, it still took us quite a while to get the rooms right. I stuck to Silvershot wherever I went, careful not to separate from him and wind up somewhere lost and alone. Now that would have been embarrassing.

Instead, we had all been given a schedule, filled with trainings. It was similar to the schedule we had back at camp, only these trainings were more difficult and for the first time ever, we had to practice maneuvers with weapons. We had gained many training sessions, some of them being self defense, but with the use of weapons, as well as sharpshooting, spying, scouting and so on.

As for the special group Prowl had told us he would be assigning us to, it turned out that as the only survivors of the camp, we were the group, consisting of Hot Rod, Silvershot, Cliffjumper, Mirage, Bumblebee and I. But now that we were the sole survivors that were present here, there was no special treatment or special training for us. I had wondered if I would ever be able to discover my specialty, as Prowl had told us all of us have a specialty we were made for. We would have been finding our specialty in that special group, but seeing as there was no group, I supposed I wouldn't know my specialty.

Everything here was extremely different here. We were completely secluded from any cities that could be surrounding us. Point was, we didn't know exactly where we were. We weren't even on the map of Cybertron. It was like this place didn't exist within Cybertron's blueprints, which not only was illicit, it was beyond confusing.

But nonetheless, we still had to train for the war to come. It may not have been here, wherever we were, but it would consume all of Cybertron, piece by piece and until then, we had to be prepared and on guard.

Right now, I was in the rec room, trying to figure it all out. It had a couple of screens on the walls, all of them next to each other, mimicking a single large screen. And in front of it was a large accommodation, consistent of many couches, tables, chairs and so on. Certainly, it looked like a normal rec room.

I crossed my arms across my chest as I walked slowly, looking over every detail, carefully putting one foot in front of the other as I roamed the room freely. Today we weren't on duty and we could go wander to wherever our sparks desired. Some of my friends went out of the Academy, to get a look on the various devices splayed outside, most probably some kind of training machines that we would be introduced to tomorrow. I was more interested in the internal structure of the Academy. They would fair better on the outside, at least for now, while I would dominate the inside.

Suddenly, I felt a presence near me, watching me. It was an odd feeling, so I turned around to where I thought the source was, uncrossing my arms and being on guard. And my hunch had proved to be correct, because in front of me, a pink colored femme, slightly shorter in size, stood calmly with a kind smile on her face.

"Hi, I heard you're the new femme here?" She said in a sweet voice, taking a bow. "I'm Arcee, it's nice to meet you."

She was quite pleasant and I prepared myself for anything. I bowed in return, returning the smile, although not feeling in the mood to smile at all. "Goldstreak."

"You want me to show you around?" She inquired, jabbing her thumb to a direction behind her, a little eager to have some company. "I've been here for a couple of mega-cycles, so I know all the basic places."

It was better than nothing. I could at least get used to the new facility and its rooms, enhancing my coordination skills. "Why not?" I said lightly, walking side by side with Arcee as she slowly started to walk me out of the rec room, going to a part of the Academy I had not still explored.

"So when did you get here?" She lightly asked, trying to keep the conversation going and trying to get to know me. I did not mind, although I didn't want to share too much information. I felt like I shouldn't be as free with words as I used to be. Something in my mind just told me to talk normally, but not reveal anything. I was sure I could do it right.

"I got here today, with my team."

"Oh, those other mechs?"

I supposed she was talking about Hot Rod, Silvershot and the rest. "Yes." I gave a single nod as we walked out of the rec room, slowly, because we had no reason to hurry.

"Well, how old are you? You seem more mature than I am." She said a little shyly, but with good intentions. "That and you're taller."

"Almost seventeen millenia." I replied. "And you?"

"Fifteen millenia. So I was right, you were older."

"I am more mature." I corrected her. I certainly felt more mature now.

"Wouldn't that be the same thing?"

"Not necessarily." I said, thinking over the matter. But then I remembered. "I knew a mech that was younger than me by a millenia and he was more mature than I am now."

"How so?"

It was my first neighbor. His femme creator had deactivated because of a rust infection and he had to take care of his father for a long time. I tried getting Railgun to lend us some credits so that we could give him medication for his father, who had suffered from a rust infection as well, but Railgun would not let it happen. So Vectra and I would take our own credits sometimes and buy them energon, just enough so that they could live through the joor.

But I didn't want to disclose what had happened. I tried to keep it short, but perhaps not the most accurate. "He lost his creators and had to take care of himself." I simply replied, not going into details.

Keep it short and simple, Goldstreak.

"I see…" she said as we walked to another room and she opened the door. It was a large room that looked somewhat like a battling arena. "I was told this is where combat will be. Hand to hand with and without weapons." She closed the door, moving onto the second room which was near. "This is for the weapon training, accuracy, effectiveness and so on." She closed that door as well.

Conversely of these rooms, there was a large double door. "Where does this lead?" I turned to look at her, pointing towards the closed doors.

"That's the medical bay."

"I see why it's close to the weapon and combat training quarters."

"In case someone gets hurt and needs immediate assistance."

"Exactly." I agreed with her, giving a single nod. "What else have we got?"

"There's the superiors' offices and quarters."

"Their offices are their quarters?" I asked as we moved deeper into the hallway, looking to the right where each of the doors had a large sign above them which stated which superior resided there.

"Yes, it's to make coordination easier."

"I see their quarters must be large."

"Wouldn't know, haven't been there yet." Yet?

"You planning to be?" I smirked as a perverse thought found its way into my head as she fell into her own trap. She immediately blushed, looking away and smiling embarrassingly.

"No, no, not in that way!"

"Course not." I chuckled.

"Okay okay, let's move on, please?" she hurried with her walking, as if walking away from here would make a difference. "These are our quarters." She said, motioning to the furthest part of the main hallway. "Mine are all the way up front, right in the center. Where are you quarters?"

"I have no idea." I bluntly said. "There are no signs here?"

"None actually." She shook her head. "Well, I'm sure you'll find out somehow."

Slagging right I would. "Yeah." I gave the doors a searching look. There really weren't any signs that said which rooms belonged to whom. I guess I would learn them all with time. "Arcee, are we the only femmes here?"

"Now? Yeah. Just you and me." She nodded, a little sad. "There aren't any femmes fit for fighting in the war, so there's just you and me for now. I keep hoping some more would come, but only you've come in these past few mega-cycles that I've been here. Have you met any other femme that might join us?"

"No." I shook my head. "None." But we still continued until she finished the tour. We went all the way to the end of the hallway where all the quarters of the soldiers were and turned right, entering the refueling area. We didn't include Elita, although she was a femme as well, because she was not among the students at this Academy.

"Well, this is all I know, maybe there's more." She shrugged, smiling at me. She was silent for a while before she spoke up again. "You know, I think you and I are going to get along very nicely."

"You think?" I said, not particularly interested, but willing to give her a chance. I only wondered, based on what did she conclude this?

"Yeah, I mean, other than the gender thing, I think we have a lot in common."

"Where'd you get that?" I almost laughed, but tried hard to keep it in.

"Well, you just strike me as that kind of bot." Oh, I strike her.

Trying to keep the situation light, I continued talking to her as we walked back together, towards the exit. "So what are you good at? Maybe those are our… common things." I searched for the words.

"Well, I'm good in hand to hand and I'm pretty good at sharpshooting."

"Hand to hand is one thing we got the same." I noted out loud. Although I didn't dare say that I had never held a weapon in my hand. That would be embarrassing and degrading, seeing a younger bot than myself be a better wielder of a weapon. I wouldn't give her that.

"And shooting?"

She just had to ask, didn't she. "I'll make room for improvement." I simply replied.

"That's nice. See, I told you we had stuff in common."

"Sure did." I said as we finally exited the Academy and I saw my team quite near the entranceway, right where Arcee and I were standing. They noticed both me and her as they continued to walk up. "Let me introduce you to my friends." I said as we walked towards them, meeting halfway. "This is Hot Rod, Mirage, Cliffjumper, Silvershot and Bumblebee. Everyone, this is Arcee, the only other femme here."

"Nice to know Gold ain't alone." Cliffjumper lightly said, smiling charmingly at Arcee.

"She could get used to some femme company after us." Hot Rod said, giving her the sexy grin as Arcee faltered at it.

"This is my brother." I motioned towards Silvershot who only bowed in greeting. "And this is Bee." I pointed towards Bee, who was just a little bit shy, but I knew he wanted to hang around. He was sociable, but only when he was certain the bots he was hanging out with weren't corrupted.

"Thanks." Arcee said to me. "It's been really nice meeting you."

I inclined my head to the side only slightly, giving her a smile. "Likewise." I dipped my head in a little, showing respect. The more respect you show towards others, especially below your rank, the more respect you have for yourself and the more other bots will respect you for. This I learned and this I kept and went by.

"Goldstreak, we should head to quarters." Silver said, motioning with his head to go forward and into the Academy.

"What about the outside? I haven't been out."

"There isn't much to see. Only a couple of obstacles that needed running, walls that needed climbing, half walls that needed jumping…"

"Yeah, sounds like nothing interesting at all." I sarcastically said as Arcee and my team moved into the Academy and I didn't bother to look back after them. "I want to see."

"Have it your way. " he answered as we slowly made our way towards the obstacles and then he started talking again. "This is the polygon. We start here." He said as we walked over to the starting line. "Want to give it a try?" He challenged and gave me a challenging look to follow it.

"As if you have to ask." I smirked as I dashed in front of him, jumping over the half walls immediately and Silvershot wasn't far behind. I had to use my hands to get my body over them, it wasn't difficult. I was actually having fun. I just had to make sure I didn't slip or trip.

The next thing I had to do was to drop down to the ground and crawl through something that could only be described as mud.

I gave a hesitating look back at Silvershot, who dived past me straight into the mud, where he had to keep his head low as to not catch the barbed wire above him. As he dived in, the mud splashed over my frame as I groaned and hit the ground, crawling through the mud with the use of my elbows. It was difficult and required a lot of body swiftness and movement, something I hadn't considered when I dived in. Because the mud was dense in its natural form, I had to use more strength than I would have preferred.

As I got up and Silvershot was already in the lead, I jumped straight onto a rope that connected to the large metallic wall that I had to climb. It was a straight wall and Silvershot had used his feet on it, trying to pull himself up with the rope and walk on the wall at the same time. It had proved to be futile, seeing as his pedes kept sliding down the wall because of the liquid mud.

An idea came into my processor. I took the rope and started climbing solely on the rope. Yes, my hands and feet slid, but I managed to hold myself onto it as I climbed over and got to the top. I realized that there was a sort of ladder beneath me, but it connected to the other side, to the second wall, to be exact. I had to use the strength of my arms to get from one end to the other. It was like a cyber-monkey type of getting from one end to the other.

I had to make sure my hands didn't slip, otherwise it would be a long and painful way down. Not to mention extremely embarrassing.

I cleaned my hands on my thigh plates as quickly as I could as I saw that Silver was gaining in on me and I crouched, slipping my legs through the square holes of the ladder and holding the whole of my weight by my arms as I slowly got from one end to the other, moving rather slowly and with difficulty.

Unfortunately for me, Silvershot, using his muscles and agility, surpassed me, getting to the other end two astroseconds before me and I wouldn't tolerate it. I forced myself to speed up, feeling out of breath already. This was tiring and required a lot of energy to finish and I could only speculate on what was awaiting for me on the other end of the wall.

As I had reached the end, I was surprised to see a net that descended to another half wall, which was half of the size of this large wall I was currently standing on. But I managed to laugh as I saw Silvershot's leg slip through the net's holes and he entangled himself, trying to break free, but couldn't.

The net was a piece of energon cake for me, as all I had to do was coordinate my feet to not let them slip through the holes and I was alright. But from this half wall I had been standing now on, I saw metallic boxes in front of me, all arranged in a circular pattern that connected to the beginning of the polygon. Which could only mean that I had to jump from box to box.

So I did, I rushed and jumped until I had no more boxes to jump on and was left to run back to the polygon.

As I did a U-turn, I saw that Silvershot had managed to untangle himself and was slowly making his way towards me, jumping over the boxes. I sprinted until I saw another bunch of boxes, each being taller than the one before it, and it reminded a lot like giant stairs. It was a good exercise for the leg muscles and I could certainly feel the thigh muscles of mine pulsing with adrenaline, even after all of this exercising.

As I had reached the tallest and largest metallic box, which was the same size of the wall I had to climb on, cyber-monkey style, and it was quite large, there was an even larger hole in front of me. Surely, I wasn't supposed to go in there. Was I?

I glanced behind, seeing that Silver had been sprinting towards me. I quickly looked down and saw a net covering the hole. No, I definitely wasn't supposed to go down.

Then where was I supposed to go?

Luckily, the answer was just in front of me. I had to rush even faster and harder and jump further to reach the other box, the one that would surely lead me to the beginning of the polygon, I was sure of it. I took in a deep breath, cycling my air quickly to cool my systems as fast as possible.

So I took the leap of faith and gave it my best shot. I went to the beginning of the box and sprinted until I reached the end, then I jumped with all that I had in me.

I had barely caught onto the box, failing to repress a slight yelp as I crashed with my abdomen on the sharp edge of the box, the air from my tanks pushed out. I cringed as I brought myself up, looking back to see Silvershot ready to make the jump.

Go, go, go!

I had to keep myself motivated, so I jumped from box to box all the way down descending as I got to the last box, careful not to land badly and trying to breathe evenly and rid the pain from my frame. I sprinted to the beginning of the polygon, touching the half wall I had to jump over in the first place.

As Silvershot managed to finish the polygon, I knew I had already won. I brought my fists up and let a squeal of happiness erupt from me, allowing myself to be immature for once. "Victory!"

A large arm found its way around my neck, holding me in a chokehold immediately. The other arm was starting to give me a noogie. "Say what?" He mocked, pressing his fist harder into my head.

I twisted with a lot of power, somehow starting to push my helm into his abdomen as he bent over. I jumped at him as we rolled on the ground, play fighting. We punched, kicked, jabbed and whatnot, but nothing to seriously injure the other. "Just admit it, you lost." I said as I sat on his abdomen, pinning him to the ground. I was nothing if not the master of pinning people to walls or the ground.

"It wasn't a competition." He replied as he pushed me off gently and I laid on the ground next to him. I snorted out loud as he got up and offered me a hand to stand up.

"Sure it was." I said as he brought me up. "Don't deny it."

"Shut up." He sharply said, giving me a sharp look to follow his words.

I knew I had won. Victory on day one.

Some of you may be wondering why there is mud in the Academy. It's not organic mud like our human, consistent of dirt, sand, water and whatever else you want it to be consisted of, this is inorganic, yet liquid mud. Basically, mud is the same thing here and there, just different in Cybertronian terms.

Written:

13.05.2014.