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Chapter 102
Boiling Point
Sunlight gleamed off the curve of Jynx's tinted vizor as she stared through narrowed optics. The bright light bounced across the small space between her and the crouched mech in front of her. Directly across from her, Jazz flexed his claws. Crouched low over the soft stone between them, those bright blue optics stared hard right back at her. His bright blue optics were visible across the distance, even behind the darker blue of his visor. There was hardly a few paces between her and the larger mech, but that small space flared with tension.
Jynx flexed her own claws, balanced on her toes, every cable in her frame ready for the spring. Jazz shifted just the slightest bit to the left. His weight carefully balanced on the back of his heel, Jynx bit back a pleased smirk.
The corner of his lips lifted with a smirk of his own.
A breath, and they flung themselves at each other.
They crashed together with a clash of plating and a vicious swipe of claws. Jazz had the advantage of size on her, but Jynx was nothing if not a slippery, swift little slag. Being that slightest bit larger than her, Jynx figured he would go high. So, she beat him to it.
Flinging herself into the clash they hit with a bang and she slashed out for his shoulder. Using the grip, she launched herself up and over him. The hard shove knocked him off balance just enough that she flipped over his back with a twist. The twist putting her in the perfect position to slam her ped claws into his back.
Jazz pitched forward with a grunt of pain. Arms flailing for the shortest of movements, but the silver mech wasn't one of the most dangerous Autobots that ever lived for no reason. Before Jynx could even land behind him and go for his back he had caught himself on his palms. Shoving himself back up with a twist of his own, he came back to his peds and flung himself back at her with another slash.
Jynx wasn't fast enough to dodge the full hit. He only managed to graze her—probably due to pulling the punch than anything else—along the neck, but he still managed to get the hit and with it the show came to an end.
Jynx rolled with the force of his hit. Back hitting the stone, she rolled over her own shoulders, coming back into a kneel at the edge of the ring. Stilling with a puff of breath, she jerked herself around in time to watch Jazz slide to a stop. Those bright blue optics of his catching the silver she now let shine from behind her visor. He lifted optic ridge behind the rim of his visor—a question in the tilt of his helm—that she nodded to as she came back upright.
With a huff of frustration, she turned from him to look back at their audience the same time he did. The cluster of wide optics of various colors surrounded the small ring they stood in. A gaggle of various sizes and shapes of mechs and femmes that didn't look like they had a clue in the world what they just witnessed.
Jynx bit back a sigh.
Letting Jazz take over she let her arms cross lazily over her chest. There was no point moving, they would go at it again in a matter of moments. However, she had no wish to play teacher. She didn't have the patience for it.
They had already figured that out for sure.
Teacher was not something Jynx had any interested in being. She kind of sucked at it. If one listened to Jazz, that is.
"Alright," Jazz drawled to the group of bots around them. They were young—but grown—most never having seen an orn of battle yet having been born after the end of the war. Jynx doubted they truly understood just what it was they had signed up for when they joined up with the Elite Guard. The attack on the city had shaken all of New Iacon's inhabitants to the core though.
And even if they all looked like scared fawns in the face of what they were now going to have to learn. Jynx couldn't fault them for wanting to protect their families and their home.
"Who can tell me what Jynx did right and what she did wrong?"
Sensors fluttering in their grooves, the small white painted femme let her gaze dance around the cluster of young bots. Some were younger than her, some older, but most were relatively the same age. They were a not just bots that had come from New Iacon though. Oh no, not anymore. There were actually a good number of young bots from the refuges that had come to call this place home, and bots from Fritzron here around them.
There was actually quite a lot of bots that had joined up for the Guard that were asking to be trained by Jynx.
And hadn't that been an interesting experience.
A handful of decacycles had pasts since Ragtime and Mohawk limped with their survivors into the city. Those that could be repaired quickly had already been cleared by the medics and hadn't taken hardly anytime at all in signing up for the Guard. Then, shortly after signing up, they started asking about her.
Sideswipe and Sunstreaker's current shifts were short range weapons training. Optimus had gone all hands on deck in the face of what they all knew was coming. Numbers they might have gained, but a bunch of untrained bots swelling his numbers were of no use to him. They were a danger to themselves and everybot around them.
And considering the Prime had no use for cannon fodder, those that needed training were his priority. Granted, his bots were skilled, and most of them had spent long enough in war they were at least decent at training others how to not blast their face off with a plasma cannon. This crash course of what should have been vorns of training was nothing compared to what a bot really needed in training before they could join the guard.
Bluestreak had told her that the other night while she helped him. He shifted through contract after contract that had been signed by these bots in order to enlist. Before the war it took a bot no less then twenty-five vorns to complete the necessary training, classes, and apprenticeship it took to become an authority figure among civilians or a warrior among the Guard.
Time was a luxury they did not have though.
So, compromises had to be made.
The true details of the contracts these bots signed was not something Jynx was privy too. All she really knew was that there was a whole heap of conditions being applied. If any of them actually survived what was to come, they would have to commit to the vorns long training to stay in the Guard. They would not be forced to if they wanted to leave it after seeing the horror that Jynx figured was to come. If they wished to stay though, they would have to train as those that came before them did.
Apparently, because that was what her contract had said.
Those orns ago when Prowl had laid the datapad in front of her had been rather shocking. She supposed, it hadn't really occurred to her before. Technically speaking, she was not in Prime's Elite Guard. She had struck a deal with him—a deal that had become a whole pit of a lot more—but she had never technically signed on to be one of his warriors.
She hadn't wanted to then.
To be honest . . . she didn't want to be now.
That was why she hadn't signed it.
Blinking down at the words on the screen before her, Jynx wasn't sure any of them were sinking in.
Okay, no.
She knew none of them were sinking in. All she was doing was staring at them from where she sat at in the chair across from Prowl's desk. She'd been up here all afternoon helping Bluestreak and Prowl file contracts for the new recruits.
She hadn't understood the sudden tension in the air when Prowl had sighed and laid one down in front of her. Across the table from her Jazz had bristled.
He hadn't been here all orn like she had.
He had been down helping train stealth with a mech named Mirage.
He was only up here to have lunch with them and to take a break. Apparently, Prowl had been waiting for him to be here before he did this.
"I told you to leave her out of this." Jazz didn't growl the words. He didn't even bare his fangs. Instead, the cold look he cut to his mate was almost worse. If Jynx had been able to do anything but blink stupidly down at the datapad before her, she might have paid it more attention. Beside her, Bluestreak went very still.
Prowl sighed, those cool blue optics of his cutting to his mate's visor for a long moment before he gave a shake of his helm.
"I am only following the legal procedure of this, Jazz. I know you do not like it—"
"I don't give a rat's aft about the legal procedure! You are not making her sign one of those damn Guard contracts! She is not going to fight for the rest of her damn life! Hasn't she fought enough, Prowl!?"
Jynx's helm had snapped up at the words. Optics widening as her spark thudded in her chest.
"Have you even considered that I do not want her to join the Guard either?" The doorwings that had been loose behind his back tightened and arched with the tension that suddenly came to life in his shoulders. "That is why I put those clauses about leaving whenever you like! I don't like it Jazz. I am simply making it to where there are no . . . complications down the line."
Optics narrowing behind his visor, Jazz paused in his growling. Audio horns flicked backward atop his helm before he settled back into his chair. Helm tilting in consideration, he regarded Prowl for a long breath. "What kind of complications? What have you and Soundwave been up to?"
"The legal side of Jynx getting cleared if we actually do survive all of this." Prowl went on with a look back at her.
"Cleared?" She muttered, looking back down at the contract in front of her. "From . . . before."
"Yes." Prowl nodded slowly. "The past is what it is, Jynx. None of us can change it. We understand the differences between what we thought and what was since before you came here. Do not get me wrong on that. We do know. But the truth is—"
"I killed a whole lot of your Guard for a very long time." She offered hesitantly, optics not lifting from the contract. It had been . . . well it wasn't that she hadn't thought about what her life had been like out in the desert towns before she got picked up by this bunch. She remembered.
Oh Primus, how she remembered.
But the reality of what she had done back then wasn't something she liked to think too much about. For a good long time, she took her claws to any Guard bot foolish enough to try and haul her in. She hadn't hunted the Guard. Not in the way a lot of The Underground did in order to get attention from the higher ups. She had had no interest in any of that.
None at all.
She had fled from Guard patrols whenever she could. She'd have run rather then fight. It hadn't been worth the risk of getting injured when she was on the run from Blackice.
When they had managed to back her in a corner though. She fought. And she fought hard. Most of those times she fought until they were too damaged to follow her, but she knew that she had killed more then a few.
Quite a few to be honest.
When she had come here—what felt like a life time ago—she hadn't cared about that. They had hated her partly because of it. It was the only reason they even knew who she was. Because there had been enough survivors of those patrols to tell their superiors.
Now though . . . she felt different.
But that didn't erase the past.
"Yes," Prowl nodded, doorwings lowering to a calmer tilt between his shoulders. "But Optimus is of the opinion you've more than paid your debt to society for us. The only thing that remains is the legal side of that. Soundwave and I have been discussing it. How best to make the paper trail follow the truth. So that somewhere down the line there is no legal angles anybot can take to threaten you."
Jazz slouched back in his chair. "Ah . . . I see. Sorry, Prowler."
The black and white mech spared him a glance and a nod.
Jynx didn't follow.
Bluestreak beat her to the question. "So . . . why doesn't Optimus just pardon her? Wouldn't that be easier?"
"He has." Prowl told him. "And there is very little anybot could do to challenge the ruling prime on a pardon for war crimes. Since we all have them. That is not the worry though. The worry is all these rushed applications and training happening right now. We don't usually give untrained bots the skills and tools to go out and murder each other, you know? There is supposed to be vorns of training before we turn them loose to fight. We can not do that this time. So we came up with all these clause in the contracts to make sure we can handle anything that might come afterward."
"Oh," Bluestreak nodded. "I get it. So, if Jynx helps with training and then fights with us, from a legal stand point, Optimus needs her to be a Guard bot. So that later no bot can say anybot did anything wrong."
"Yes."
"But . . . I don't want to . . . join the Guard." She muttered, looking not at Prowl but to Jazz.
Bright blue optics that had once been her own, darted to her behind the curve of Jazz's visor. Something like pain fluttered across Jazz's features. A tightness coming to life in his lips before he leaning forward in his chair. Reaching across the table between them he lay his hand out against the surface. Palm up, claws open in an offer that Jynx wasn't quite sure what to do with.
Her spark pulled in her chest. Tentative but curious at the slight poking she could feel along Jazz's end of it. Hesitantly, she reach out and let her claw tips mingle with his.
Jazz didn't try to catch her fingers. If anything, he stayed very still apart from twisting the tips of his claws to rattle with hers. She still pulled back after a few nanos though. The largeness of the offered comfort too much for her at the moment.
Jazz didn't seem bothered.
That hard line around his mouth eased when she had reached out and it stayed away when he pulled his hand back. Quietly speaking after a few breaths.
"You don't have to sign the contract, Sweetspark. I'm not gonna let anybot make you. Okay? No matter what. If you don't want to join the Guard, you don't have too."
"But I want to fight Blackice. I have to, Jazz."
"I know." He nodded. "I'm not saying you won't. I'm saying you have always been a rather special case. If you don't want to sign up. Don't. We will figure something out for the paperwork side of things."
"I still don't understand why so many of them are asking for me anyway." She mumbled, optics looking back to the datapad.
"Because they know you." Prowl offered softly. "They know you as something that was like them that now sits among us. You survived. You can fight back. They have decided you a safe way to try and do the same. It is not a large leap to think that a good many of them would look to you for guidance."
"If you don't want to help work with them though. You don't have to." Jazz assured her.
That was the thing though, wasn't it?
She didn't really want to work with them. She didn't think she would be any good at teaching a bot how to fight. She didn't know the first thing about teaching anything. Everything she knew, she learned the hard way.
That was the only instruction she knew.
She doubted that way would be much help to these bots.
They wouldn't stop asking though. And if she was going to do it, Jazz had said she could stay with him. She wouldn't be much use helping Sides and Sunny train bots. She did not fight like them. But her and Jazz were built nearly the same. They fought very similar.
They would be a good team to teach bots.
"If I don't sign this," She muttered. "Can I still help? If I don't technically join the Guard."
"If you want that." Jazz promised her. "I will make it work."
Prowl shot his mate a look, but he did not challenge the words.
"Its just . . . ." Silver optics flickering over the words she slowly shook her helm back and forth. "I . . . I can't sign away my life to fight for somebot, Jazz. Not even Prime. Not even if it means getting Blackice. I . . . I didn't get a choice before . . . but . . . I can't Jazz."
"Then you won't." His voice was firm, his optics bright, and down the link between them Jynx let a little more of him in.
"Umm . . . she over balanced and left her back open?"
Jynx's gaze slid to one of the larger mechs among the group. He was large, but lean in the way Soundwave was. He didn't have the bulk some large mech's did, but for this lesson that wasn't a bad thing. Jazz and Jynx never fought with bulk on their side. They were rather small for Cybertronians and as such most of the time they were outsized in everyway by those they fought.
That was why Jazz was teaching this hand to hand class. It was why Jynx was helping him. They had learned to fight in a very specific manner to keep themselves alive. Jazz's job in this was to try and teach these bots that.
Some of these bots were larger than them, some smaller, but all were here because they were not the slightest bit skilled in hand to hand combat.
"Partly," Jazz nodded, turning toward the purple colored mech. "But there is more to it then that. She left her back open and in the process of turning gave me a chance to strike. If I had wanted to, I could have ripped her neck open. Quick as that. You have to not only be aware of where your frame is, but where your enemy's is as well."
"Sure, that sounds easy." The snark came from one of the femmes among the circle. She was even smaller than Jynx, the color of the sky on a cloudy day. Her sharp blue optics told more then she probably knew they did. She was scared, that much was obvious.
Jynx couldn't say she blamed her.
She didn't look the type that liked to fight. She was only here because she wanted to help protect the life she had come to know.
Jynx could commend her for that. However, that didn't mean she was about to go easier on her. That would only get her dead.
"I never said any of this would be easy." Jazz responded, optic ridge lifting over the rim of his visor. "I said the opposite. Now, pair up. The lot of you. Face to face. First touch to the neck ends the round. That is what you're aiming for. Go on."
The gaggle broke apart at that. Spreading out along the sand pit that had come to be this far corner of the court yard. The training sections were broken up around the outer courtyard around the tower. Leaving enough room for bots to still come and go as normal in the inner yard while also leaving enough room that no bot hurt each other between the different lessons.
Most of the shooting and such was happening in the shooting ranges, virtual rooms, and such. It was safer and easier that way. Jynx knew that Drift and some of the other speedsters had started classes around one of the old race tracks that had survived the bombing.
For now, though, Jynx wasn't concerned with that. She had enough to think about with her own tasks lately. As the group broke apart and paired off, Jazz made his way back to her. Bright blue optics setting on her he muttered lowly.
"Still doing alright?"
They had been at this for breams. Show fighting, clashing with each other, and showing different ways in which to fight somebot the same size and shape as you.
"Tired." She admitted. "But I'm alright."
Jazz nodded, letting his gaze slide over the gathered students. "We have been out here for a while."
"Do you think they are actually learning anything?" She questioned.
"Yes," Jazz nodded. "But they won't pick it up fast. I don't think it would hurt for us to add somebot bigger than us. They are getting used to seeing us fight each other. They need to see how we fight something bigger than us."
She nodded, letting a yawn out as she glanced toward the sky.
"Perhaps after lunch." He gave her a slight grin. "We'll give them all a break. Why don't you run down to the range and collect those mechs of yours? Pick us up some lunch and come back. If they are done with their shifts for the morning, they can help us out up here."
Jynx didn't know if she wanted to blush at his comment of 'those mechs of yours' or not, but for now she let it go. That was for sure not a conversation she wanted to have out here in front of anybot else. There was a teasing quirk to his lips after he said it, but there was also a very real seriousness in his optics.
She knew Jazz was doing his best.
He was trying not to push in places he didn't feel he had a right to. Even if he maybe wanted to.
And he . . . well he was doing a good job of giving her the space she needed to sort her own spark out. But also doing his best to show her that he was around. If she needed him.
It was a strange thing to come to terms with. Sometimes she still didn't quite know how to process. She was working on it though.
The last few orns working with Jazz for the full span of the cycle. It was the most time they had spent together—technically one on one—since the truth of what they were had come to light. There was still a lot they needed to talk about. Jynx knew that, but Jazz didn't know what had been going on in her helm.
It would make sense that he would be trying to get a read on what had been going on between her and the twins. She was all to aware they had all but drown her in their scent this morning. As they had the last few orns she had been away from them for the sessions with Jazz's trainees. It was . . . nice, though she was still bashful about it.
All too aware that where ever she went the scent of the two mechs went with her. It wasn't overpowering, but it was there. It was something they enjoyed doing now that she let them. Something she found she liked as well. She didn't quite understand all the feelings it created in her yet, but she had come to terms with liking it.
She had not come to terms with the way she was supposed to talk about it.
Especially with her sire.
He didn't ask her though. He left her to her own way to work it out with the mechs. She was grateful for it, though she figured he was resisting in a lot of ways.
She wasn't sure she was ready to discuss the warmth growing in her chest with any bot but the twins right now. Not even Nook, who she had no issues speaking with normally. Jazz was harder in a lot of ways.
Ways they needed to work on.
She turned to head for the range where Sides and Sunny were working, but she stopped halfway through the motion to look back.
"Jazz?" She questioned.
He turned back from where he had gone back to watching his trainees with a curious hum.
"Can we . . . talk tonight? After shift?"
Those blue optics brightened slightly, then he nodded. "Yeah, Sweetspark. If you want to. Do you want to come up to mine and Prowl's room? We could play Grand Design."
She nodded firmly, then hurried off to find the twins.
The crash of plasma against metal showered around the room in every direction. The onslaught of sound raked against Sunstreaker's nerves. Resisting the urge to start throwing things at the absolute glitches surrounding him this orn, the golden mech stood at the back of the firing range with his arms cross over his chest.
The eldest of the twins never had been very good at what he deemed pointless. That was for damn sure.
He just wished it wasn't necessary for their current lot in life.
Sideswipe was all together different. No real surprise for the two of them. They were rather divided down the middle in most cases of temper and quirks.
However, in this case, the crimson red mech paced up and down the back of the line of cadets trying to hit a stationary target at 200 paces and trying to not vent his frustration at the lack of consistency. Some of the cadets were not bad at all. For bots that hadn't had much experience with anything like this before, they weren't fairing too bad.
Mainly, it seemed to the be the bots that had come as refugees. There weren't any from Fritzron in this group, but there were some from other surface towns. These bots had obviously not had the soft life those in New Iacon had grown use to.
And it showed.
They were undisciplined, and wary in their own abilities, but they were at least able to hit the target with some consistency. They showed promise. They would be able to learn quickly.
The same could not be said for most of the young cadets from New Iacon.
Sunstreaker stood with his jaw clenched, arms tight over his chest, watching his brother walk up and down the line, correcting elbows, shifting shoulders, and kicking ankles. Sides could do it without wanting to smack bots over the audios for forgetting what they had been told again.
The fifth time Sunstreaker had vented his frustration with a particularly foolish young mech who thought showing off was the same as practice Ironhide had shoved the golden twin to the back of the room.
Sunny couldn't say he minded all that much.
He handled the frustration a lot better, but watching from the back he could push his thoughts towards Sides and he could correct it. It was better this orn though. He enjoyed the hand to hand courses much better than he did these firing classes. He and Sides had always been more hands-on fighters with their blades and brute force. That was all they had had in the Gladiator Rings. They hadn't had the resources nor the health to make the needed plasma to rely on it as a weapon.
All bots could produce their own plasma to fuel the blasters and cannons some of them could make naturally, but that took a whole lot of natural resources. They had to have enough fuel, nanites, and so many other components Sunny couldn't name in order to make the plasma they needed to fire. Then, there was the fact that some bots' frames simply didn't have the natural make up for that kind of weaponry.
Sides and Sunny were of that kind.
So was Jynx. Though, they all knew Jynx's lack of natural blasters wasn't just because of her frame type and size. She could have handled the recoil of a small blaster her frame might naturally be able to create. It just didn't though. She'd never had the needed upgrades, the access to fuel, or been healthy enough for her frame to focus on anything but basic survival. Her claws and fangs had been the only natural weapons her frame could afford to make.
How much of frame difference came from coding—after all Jazz didn't have natural blasters either—and how much had to do with environment, went way over Sunstreaker's helm though.
All he knew, was that bots with the natural make up for firing weaponry were normally a lot better at it, then those that didn't. And it showed.
There was a reason Ironhide was the Weapons Specialist during the war and now. The massive ebony mech making his way up and down the line of cadets came by those oh so very powerful cannons of his quite naturally. His frame made them and they were as natural to him as breathing. His huge, bulky, wide frame was specially built to handle the recoil of the powerful cannons as well as capable of making the needed plasma to supply them at all times.
Not everybot was.
Sides and Sunny came by their blades by the way of both natural frame development and slight upgrades. Their frames were designed to fight better with such weapons then blasters. So that was what they gravitated toward.
They could do both though.
They had learned very quickly in the war to learn every weapon they could get their hands on. Their subspaces had once been packed with as many plasma clips as they could keep and blasters to go along with it.
For a short time, Sunstreaker's extra bulk had meant he comfortably handled the upgrade for in-frame blasters. He had tired of them though. Returning to those he could use externally after a while.
Sides had never liked the way in-frame blasters felt and so he never installed them.
It all truly did come down to the preference of the bot in the end.
It was just a trademark of their species. And as such, some of them were better at it then others. It was only natural.
However, war left no room for lack of knowledge, and long range weapons kept bots safer then other types of weapons. The truth of the matter was, these young bots stood a better chance of surviving conflict with guns then they did knives.
Granted, Optimus had no plans of throwing the inexperienced bots to the frontlines. If the Prime and Protector had their way about it, none of this training would even matter. The Elite Guard had the numbers to fight. Bots that had survived the war and already knew their way around a battlefield. However, the numbers the Ground had to work with were unknown and it was better to be ready.
That, and how did you tell a city full of bots that had nearly lost their lives, that they couldn't learn how to fight back?
Besides, it gave a good portion of them something to think about.
Waiting wasn't many of the Old Guard's strongest trait.
Dark blue optics swept up the line of cadets once more. Checking for anything that was likely to get them or somebot near them killed any time soon. Finding nothing, Sunstreaker let his attention slide to the mass of ebony plating and weathered features that was Ironhide. The huge mech outsized the twins in every way. He was three times as wide and nearly double their height. Built like a powerhouse of a mech, Ironhide was nothing to sneeze at that was for sure.
Making his way down the back of the line, Ironhide came to a stop next to where Sunstreaker watched. Deep blue optics—one marred with the thick line of a scar—set in a deep, square face took in the golden mech for a few moments. He turned back to watch the cadets after a few moments, but Sunstreaker didn't need Half Pint's connection with the big mech's spark to know he was working up to something.
The big ebony mech never had been a rather talkative one. It was something they had in common. The two of them could simply exist near each other. It was a quality that had made them work well together through the war. After Ironhide had gotten over his rather intense distrust of them when they had first come to the Autobots.
Well, Sunstreaker and Ironhide at least.
Sides had always been a little too noise and troublesome for Ironhide to have a quiet grace with. They got along, but didn't work as well together as the golden twin and the WS could.
At the moment though, Sunstreaker didn't really think the weapons training was what was on the ebony mech's mind though.
"What do you think?" Ironhide pinged him over a private comm. The internal sound made Sunstreaker's helm vents shift, but the golden mech shrugged a shoulder all the same.
"There is a reason we train for vorns to do this job." Sunstreaker offered back.
Ironhide let out a deep chuckle, the sound resonating like a note of thunder in his chest. "Primus, don't I know that."
"I don't think Primus has much to do with any of this."
Those dark blue optics—a few shades darker than Sunny's own—slid to him for a moment, but returning to the line of bots. They both watched Sideswipe make his way up and down the line. The crimson brother cast a glance their way, a question simmering in their bond, but Sunstreaker mentally waved him off. He was not yet sure what Ironhide was chewing at, but it wasn't likely anything to worry about.
"I will agree with you on that." He sighed, those heavy shoulders rolling with the motion. "But I'd rather have more to work with then less. If I have my way about it, they won't be leaving the city walls. The older bots getting trained are a different story. These young bots though, they are not much use to anybot if they get in the way in a fight. The last thing we need is a whole new generation dying in another war."
The words stung Sunny's spark with the bluntness, but the golden mech was nothing if not pragmatic.
And Ironhide was too old to mince words.
"I was wondering when somebot was going to shove that in Optimus' face."
"Oh, don't get it wrong, mech." Ironhide snorted. "None of us are unaware of the gravity of what we are playing with. Those of us that survived the war at least. I don't fault these bots' creators for choosing not to fight as long as they could. For wishing their creations might not have to know all this. But right now, we are better off with another generation that knows intimately how to fight then we are one gone soft."
"And how many more generations, Ironhide, do you think we are going to have to force to grow up in a war?" There was a bitterness to Sunstreaker's tone. Of that he was very much aware. He and Sides might not have grown up in a way the way Bumblebee had—the way Ironhide had had to raise him—but they had grown up in a fight. It was no way for a young spark to exist.
Add that truth into the one they now harbored with Jynx—a young spark that had been all but destroyed by war—there was nothing about history repeating itself that either brother liked.
Neither were foolish enough to pretend Ironhide of all mechs enjoyed this truth though. Ironhide had lost nearly everything to the first war to begin with. He had lost his mate for almost forever, they had both lost their first son at no more then a handful of vorns old, and he had lost his brother for a short time. Granted, Chromia and Outrider had saved themselves and found their way back home.
But the lost of Whiteout had been final. The tiny mechling had died the night Hide thought he lost Mia as well.
It had nearly destroyed him.
Sunstreaker doubted, in a lot of ways, that the ebony mech would have survived the war. Let alone Chromia and Outrider finding their way back. Had it not been for Bumblebee.
Finding that tiny ball of yellow sparkling among the ruins of a leveled city, might have been the best thing to ever happen to Ironhide. It surly was the thing that had kept him alive. His whole purpose had become caring for that mechling. The task had belonged to each of them in some ways, but it was no secret who Bumblebee had bonded the deepest to back them.
They all helped raise the mechling, but Ironhide was Bumblebee's sire. He always would be.
And it was Ironhide that had guarded the young mech from battle as long as he could. They had all trained Bee to fight. Desperate to give him every advantage they could over his size and youth, but in the end, it was Ironhide that decided when the young mech left the safety of their shadows and became a scout.
It had been too soon though.
He had been too young. Too bright. Too eager to believe the good in others.
They had nearly lost him because of it.
Bumblebee had never been built for war. In a different world he never would have fought it, but they could not keep him from it. It was the reality of the world they had known. All they could do was teach him to fight, so that he stood a fighting chance.
It hadn't dimmed him—miraculously—in the way it had dimmed others. However, Sunstreaker wasn't sure it such would be the case with these new young bots. Most of them were not much younger than Bumblebee. Maybe a couple of vorns or so difference. Those that had had either been left behind unknown to the war or those that had been among those that's creators fled early on in the war.
Shaking his helm, Ironhide cross his thick arms over his barrel of a chest. "If I could say none, Sunstreaker. Don't you think I would? You've never been one for your helm up in the clouds though."
The golden mech snorted. "True."
He let out a sigh, but Ironhide went on before he could think more of it.
"If we are lucky it will be preparation for something that doesn't come. Like I said, we have decent numbers. We are more then capable of handling an offence or a defensive. But I will not turn scared bots away from the knowledge of how to defend themselves. Not when they might be called upon to do so."
Sunstreaker could only agree with that. Though it did beg a question he'd been wondering about for some time now.
"And what about New Vos?"
Ironhide bristled all over. Then again, his hatred for Starscream ran deeper then most bots knew. "I'll call that glitch of a fool when the sky falls down around our helms."
Sunstreaker dipped his chin. "Can't say I ever want to hear that voice of his ever again either. But it does make you wonder. Why the Underground only seems interested in those of us on the surface?"
"Far as I could tell, we were the ones bothering with them. Not the other way around." Ironhide said. "We are the ones that started trying to spread out the colonies into what they claimed as their land. We are the ones that challenged the way they treated their citizens. We picked fights with them. Not the other way around. It's no different then how we ended up with Jynx on a radar. She didn't attack our patrols. They attacked her, she simply fought back. For the longest time we were the aggressors in all this. But now though . . . well mech we both know all this has more to do with that little femme of yours then it does anything else."
Sunstreaker bristled.
Plating flaring and then tightening all over his frame. His spark kicking hard in his chest with a sudden surge of anger.
But he knew the mech was right.
Sideswipe paused in his correcting of a young femme's grip on a blaster. Blue optics darting over to them at the sudden surge of anger along their bond line. He poked questioningly at his other half, but Sunstreaker shook him away. It wasn't important right now.
Sides watched him a moment longer, but when the young femme he was working with questioned him, he returned his attention to her.
Sunstreaker cut his optics to Hide. "You ever tell her you blame her for any of this, I'll make you wish you hadn't."
Ironhide's optic ridges lifted at the threat, but other then that he didn't move a cable. His field flexing easily around him held a tang of surprise, but not an ounce of apprehension. It made Sunstreaker grind his teeth.
"I wasn't blaming her, mech." Ironhide told him firmly. His attention sliding back to his students. "I never will. I am simply reminding you Blackice hates us for more than just being us. We are in his way, yes. I do believe that is partly why he bothers us and not New Vos. Well, that, and it's a lot harder to attack a floating city with a fighting force that mostly stays on the ground. But it is also because we are between him and that femme. Obsession never makes much sense. Especially not the obsession of a twisted spark like that. It is not Jynx's fault we caught her and brought her here. Or that we decided to keep her and help her. Or that because of those things, Blackice turned his focus harsher on this city. It is simply the way things are."
"She doesn't need to know that though." Sunstreaker growled low over the comms.
Ironhide shot him another look. "Mech, she already knows it."
The golden mech jerked his gaze away.
Because Ironhide was right.
And he knew it.
He just hated it.
"Yeah." He breathed out the anger surging through his spark. Fingers digging into the grooves of his plating along his biceps. "I know."
"She is a clever femme. Resilient as well. Don't do her the disservice of thinking you can box her away from the truth. She knows the truth, Sunstreaker. It is why she is trying to help teach these bots. She doesn't have a damn single line of code in her to be a teacher—same as Mia—but she is trying. She is trying because she knows. And . . . if you ask me . . . because she is trying to impress the two of you."
Sunstreaker jerked his gaze back to the ebony mech so fast, something in his neck popped. "What?"
Ironhide chuckled lightly at the tone that practically echoed in his audios. It wasn't often one managed to shock the calmer twin, after all.
"Oh, come on, Sunstreaker." Hide gave him a smirk. "Neither of you are being all that subtle in the scent marks. You've hardly let her out of your sight in cycles, and now that you have, the both of you make sure she smells like you. I'm not about to go asking things that are none of my business, mech. Your business is your own. But we all can't help but pay attention. She's so very different from that angry little thing Optimus forced on you two a vorn ago. She cares a great deal about the two of you now. It's a pleasant thing to watch. A spark bloom into something happier."
Sunstreaker blinked at the ebony mech, dumbfounded for quite a few klicks before he slowly turned his attention back to the firing cadets.
Ironhide chuckled lightly under his breath. "Pit mech, did you really think we weren't paying attention?"
"Didn't think anybot but Jazz and Prowl, really." Sunstreaker admitted after a few moments. "Figured everybot else was too busy."
Ironhide snorted. "As much scent as you both got on her sensors? You think no bot picked that up every time she walks by?"
If Sunstreaker had less control of his frame, he might blush.
Across the room, helping a cadet with a jammed rifle, Sideswipe's audios twitched at the sudden rush of pleased embarrassment that rushed his way from his brother. This time he couldn't help it. He plucked at the bond with a question.
"Sunny?"
Sunstreaker stayed silent for a few klicks. The warm wash of his feelings all Sides had to work with. But then, before he could start trying to pick them apart, his brother answered. "She smells like us."
Warmth surged through Sides at the reminder. His pleasure in the primal truth of it, not something he even bothered with trying to hide in the safety of their spark. He let the feeling wash over him and roll back to Sunstreaker. "Yeah. I like it."
Sunstreaker purred down the bond with that warm tang of embarrassment that might as well be a spark blushing. Sideswipe purred back at the tingle it started in his chest.
"Me too."
Sides chuckled down the line as he handed the weapon back to the young mech and instructed him to try again. "You bringing this up for any reason? She's smelt like us for orns, Sunny."
That embarrassment thickened but Sides couldn't help but like the feel of it. It was so rare that Sunny got embarrassed. The red brother liked the taste of it.
"Ironhide noticed." Sunstreaker grumbled.
Sides shot a look over his shoulder. "You two talking about Wild Cat?"
"A bit."
Sides turned back to his watching. "What about? That we scent marked her?"
"Not just that." Sunstreaker mumbled. "Talked about the cadets for a bit. Then about that. Mostly about all this. Why all of this."
"Ah." Sides could tell Sunstreaker was shutting down a bit. He never did handle embarrassment well. It might be time to take a break for a while. He was getting hungry anyway. There was no point pushing these young bots either.
Turning back to catch Ironhide's optics, he spoke out loud.
"Time for lunch, don't you think, Hide?"
The young bots perked up at the mention and Sides couldn't help but chuckle. Ironhide shot him a look that said how much he knew what he was up to, but he nodded all the same.
"Clear out. The lot of you. Be back down here in a bream."
The cadets didn't need much more prompting then that. The range was quickly cleaned—Ironhide had made it very clear off the start that there would be no weapons left about his range—and the bots filed out leaving Sides to make his way over to his brother's side while Ironhide went about checking the weapons put away.
Reaching out, Sides traced his fingers lightly up his brother's forearm. Letting his feelings slide down the bond when the golden mech didn't flinch from the contact. Sunstreaker hadn't closed up at the embarrassment—which was a plus—but that didn't mean he wanted to be poked at about it either.
Ironhide finished his weapons checks and turned back to the brother's with amusement twinkling in those weather optics of his. Sideswipe straightened a little bit at the sight, but he needn't have worried.
"So, I suppose things are going well in the getting the femme to trust your interest department?"
Sunstreaker bristled again, but Sideswipe just chuckled.
"She isn't terrified of us being interested in her anymore."
Ironhide nodded, a smirk still holding in the corner of his lips.
"Why?" Sunstreaker grumbled. "Though you weren't going to press in slag that isn't your business?"
Hide let out a bark of laughter. "I'm just trying to figure out what to wager and when, mech."
Both brothers paused at that.
Huh?
"Smokescreen has a gambling problem, Sides. Or did you two forget that?"
For a moment the two of them stared. Then, in the same breath, Sides started chuckling and Sunstreaker let out a low growl.
"He's betting on her?" The golden brother snarled, but Sides didn't bother. He already figured out what Ironhide was getting at. He couldn't say he liked it, but well, he supposed they were foolish to think Smokey wouldn't start up a betting pool sooner or later. The tri colored mech was too clever for his own good most of the time. He got bored far too easy and when he did, the pools started.
"Oh, relax, Sunstreaker." Ironhide rumbled right back at him. "Smokescreen isn't foolish enough to bet on that femme. He's betting on you two."
The growl trailed off. Sides kept chuckling.
"And just what is the mech betting on then?" He pressed.
"When the two of you are going to start the courting gifts. When you're going to figure out what the slag you are doing." Ironhide shrugged. "It's harmless, mechs. He's bored. But you can't blame him. No bot figured we'd ever watch you two of all bots in this glitched family of ours pick another spark."
"Wasn't something we planned." Sunstreaker grumbled, but the anger was leaving him. He wasn't any happier about it then Sideswipe was, but Sunny was just as aware as his brother there was little either of them could do about it. Smokescreen didn't mean any harm with his betting. He had a pool for just about every bot for something or another. And nothing anybot said was going to make him stop running his scenarios and probabilities. It was that Praxian mind of his. Where Prowl turned his considerable mind to more helpful things, Smokescreen busied himself with games in his own.
If a bot got testy with him about his bets, he tended to run them all the more. It wasn't the kindest of things he could do probably, but well they all had their selfish quirks.
"Oh, we know." Ironhide shook his helm.
"Don't tell Jynx Smokey is betting about any of this." Sunstreaker huffed, arms crossing tight over his chest with a hard look.
"Wouldn't dream of it, mech." Ironhide shook his helm. Though whatever else he might have had in mind trailed off when the door the range slid open once more to the very femme they were talking about.
Both brothers perked up while Ironhide made himself busy with the blasters.
Jynx peaked into the room from the parted doors. Silver optics darting around the room to take in the hulking form of Ironhide over near the blasters, then the other way to find where the twins were.
A sharp grin curled up her lips when dark blue optics caught her visor. She darted into the room with quick steps clicking her claws across the floor. Sideswipe squeezed his twin's arm one last time before letting him go. A grin curling up his lips when she skipped to a stop there in front of them. The bristle that had worked itself into Sunstreaker's armor slowly slid out as he turned his attention down to her.
Jynx grinned up at the pair of them. "Hey mechs,"
"Wild Cat," Sideswipe smirked at her. "Thought you'd still be up with Jazz?"
"Lunch time." She told him with a roll of her optics. "You want to come get something to eat with me? Then come up and help me and Jazz out?"
Sides' spark kicked hard in his chest. Rolling warm and bright with the rush of she's wants us to be around that made him swallow down the urge to rub his hands across his chest seam. He could feel the warmth radiate down his and Sunny's bond link as well. The golden mech shifting ever so slightly where he stood in his own effort to not show the warmth radiating through his own chest.
"Sure," Sides nodded, throwing a glance toward the hulking ebony mech across the way. "Will you be alright for the rest of the shift, Hide?"
Ironhide threw a glance over his shoulder and gave them a nod. "I'll comm Hammerdown and Outrider. It will be fine. Go see what Jazz needs you for."
The twins nodded, waving Jynx ahead of them to follow her out.
Balancing two cubes of energon in one hand, Jynx fiddled with the key pad leading out into the courtyard. She was halfway through a growl that it wouldn't open when Sideswipe suddenly reached over her shoulder and keyed the door open.
The door swiped to the side into the bright afternoon air.
She shot him a smirk and hurried out into the courtyard.
The cadets had clustered about the training space with their own fuel. Jynx paid the little groups very little mind as it wasn't something, she had much interest in. Spotting Jazz sitting cross legged on a bench, she grinned and went to him.
Blue optics flashed behind his visor at the sight of her and the powerful brothers following after her. She skidded to stop at the side of him and plopped down. Handing him the cube she brought for him, she scooted back to mimic his position. Sides and Sunny made themselves comfortable on the other side of her. A nod shared between them and Jazz as he leaned back on a hand, lifting the other as he sipped at his lunch.
"Thanks, Sweetspark." He shot her a grin that Jynx nodded too and then turned his attention back to the clusters of cadets.
They each drank their fill quietly for a while until finally Sideswipe spoke up.
"So, what do you need us for, Jazz?"
"The cadets are getting decent at picking apart the way Jynx and I fight. We're too close in shape and fighting style for them to learn anything else from it. At least by just watching us. They haven't the slightest clue how to actually fight us, but well . . . they don't know how to fight each other yet. So, we will get there. I think they could benefit now from watching the way to fight through a size disadvantage. I want to see how they can pick apart Jynx staying out of your reach. The two of you going after to her at once will be a lot more for them to learn."
Jynx's sensors fluttered atop her helm. The idea of a play fight was interesting. It had been a while since they had had the chance to play like they had done before. It wouldn't be all that different from a show. Not really.
That is, as long as Sides and Sunny were willing to take a few swipes at her. Even if they were in mock.
The twins shared a look before dark blue optics set hard on Jazz.
"How much of a mock fight?" Sunstreaker questions with a tilt of his helm.
"Not much," Jazz admitted with a shrug. "They don't need to be overwhelmed just yet."
The brothers shared another look.
Sides' dark blue optics fell to her. "What do you want to do?"
Smirking around the rim of her glass, she glanced at him from under the rim of her visor. "Been a while since you two tried to out dance me. Hasn't it? Might be fun."
Two playful smirks were her reward.
Her spark hummed with it.
With a shrieking crash of Cybertronian steel against the much weaker concrete of the courtyard Sideswipe's right dueling blade slammed deep into the manufactured stone with a shower of sparks and a hiss of hydraulics.
It was a satisfyingly impressive strike. The cadets gasped dramatically in the background and everything.
It took everything inside Jynx not to bust out laughing.
Well, not that she had the breath for it really. But it was the principle of the thing she supposed. For the moment at least. Right now, she was too busy trying to move to laugh. She had thrown herself back from the weight of his charge not two nanos beforehand. Which meant she missed getting skewered where she stood. By a nanite or two, at least.
She'd count that as a win.
Tossing herself to the side, she flipped over her braced palm. Using her claws as a leverage point she kicked out at the shifting of energy field behind her without looking back.
It was the energy field that had told her the golden mech had closed in while she'd been dodging the red one. Well, that and that young mech and femme over there near Jazz that couldn't stop squeaking when it looked like she was going to get her helm chopped off.
Really.
She didn't know if it was funny that they thought she didn't know where the twins were, that they thought either of the twins wouldn't be able to pull the hit back, or that the cadets thought they were being quiet.
She could practically hear Jazz roll his optics.
Sunstreaker had come up around the back of her while she had been skirting around his more agile brother's blades. His own blades sliced with a whisper-hiss through the air a breath over her sensors before her ped claws caught into his hip. The leverage of her spin meant the kick packed enough of a hit that the golden mech grunted. The kick knocked him enough off balance that she could get her peds back under her and dart away form either of their reach once again.
Twisting around with a skidding stop of her ped claws she came back up right with her claws flexed and her posture braced just in time to catch them both where they stood.
Sideswipe yanked his blade free, rolling his posture back up right form his crouch. His much bigger frame perfectly balanced on his toes much like her own. It was a key difference in the way the two brothers fought. While Sideswipe could fling himself around with a balance to rival Jynx—Sunstreaker could not.
They were almost entirely built the same, but Sunstreaker did have a few bulkier upgrades then Sides did. He had heavier armor, more hit weight, and the ventilation updates to match the need of that thicker armor.
In short, Sunstreaker was heavier than Sides even if they looked almost exactly the same. This meant, that while Sides could play the agile game of fighting on his toes, Sunstreaker had to keep his peds solid under him so he didn't lose his balance.
It was a weakness when it came to fighting somebot as small, light, and agile as Jynx.
Normally, a mech that much heavier and taller than her would not have been able to manage the speed to catch her in a running fight. His only advantage would be using all that power up close. The simple fact that should he get a hold of her, or catch her with one of those blades, he would have the power he needed to not let her get loose.
But that was only normally.
There was nothing normal about Sunstreaker and Sideswipe.
There was nothing normal about fighting a pair of twins.
For every weak spot one showed, the other covered it. As simple as breathing.
They were a paradox to every thing Jazz had taught these cadets so far.
But then again, so was Jynx.
The three of them stalled there, braced, panting, and facing each other across the few lengths of courtyard Jynx had managed to put between them.
They had been at this for a little over a bream now. This twirling, twisting, striking dance of near misses and almost hits.
Jazz's running cometary to his cadets had become background noise at this point. She could almost entirely tune it out for she didn't need a break down of how she used her claws as a anchor point to get away from Sides' strike.
She did it as easy as breathing.
It wasn't something she really thought about.
She . . . honestly couldn't remember the last time she had thought about how to fight. She knew she did. A very long time ago in a sand arena on an empty moon, she had been like those cadets. Clueless, scared, and with no damn idea how to use her frame to keep herself alive.
She had gotten the slag beat out of her for it.
They weren't going to.
Luckily . . . but well . . . pain had been a good teacher.
She had become one of the most dangerous bots in this city because she had been forced to learn to beat what she shouldn't be able to. Or die.
And Jynx hadn't wanted to die.
Not even back then. Not really.
So, she had lived.
She had just . . . never really thought about how to show that to anybot before.
She wasn't sure she could.
So instead, Jazz could explain why she and the twins didn't fit any of the normal way's bots fight and try to figure out how to teach that to some young bots. She was just going to enjoy the gleam in Sides' optics and the smirk at the corner of Sunny's lips.
They were enjoying this too.
She grinned and launched herself at them again.
The dance begun again.
Her energon sang—not in the lust for more being spilled that it once had, no—but deep in her spark with a surge of life-chase-play-dance that she had never known like this before. That she had never dared chase.
She had played dancing games with Nook while she learned to dance with him. Not much after . . . but that night out on the street while they had put on a show and neither of them could be touched afterward. That had been . . . something like this, but not quite the same.
It was fun.
Fun in a way that Jynx hadn't known was real until she came here. Until she lost the hard anger and fear about these mechs. Until she had let them close . . . let them in.
Now, it was easy.
It like taking a breath. Stepping off a ledge.
Falling. Flying.
Landing with a splash.
The impact of that first hit, and the weightless wonder that comes back after. Floating back to the light.
That deep inhale when you broke the surface.
She quite enjoyed it actually.
Maybe that was why she didn't notice the hulking black ghost in the corner of the growing afternoon shadows until he spoke.
"Is this what you do now? Playfight for younglings like it will keep them alive."
That deep gravel rasp jarred her out of her leap over Sunstreaker's grasping swing. She'd meant to clear his shoulders and kick Sides in the back where he'd twisted from just almost getting his hands on her.
Instead, the sudden shock of Gambit's voice made her miss her opening and nearly slam gut first into Sunny's other blade. It was only the mech's quick thinking that stopped her. He not only yanked himself back at her stumble, but the blade retracted fast enough that all she didn't end up doing was sucker punching herself on his fist.
The hit still knocked the air out of her vents with a cough. The suddenness of all of it sending the three of them into a tangle of limps and a crash of metal.
She hit the ground with a wheeze, Sunstreaker's right hand pinned under her and his bulk at her back, but the golden mech caught himself with a palm slammed down just inches from her sensors. The crash of sound next to the open wiring made her helm ring, but she shook it off. It didn't really hurt—not like other things had hurt before—and shoving it away was easy enough when the sound of Sides' snarl reached her audios.
"What. The. Frag. Mech!? Are you trying to get somebot broken!?"
Oh no.
No.
No.
No.
Not good.
Not good at all.
They could not snarl up at Gambit.
NO.
They would lose.
Scrambling up with a high whine in her throat. Sunstreaker was quick to shove himself up and off of her, but his hand stayed around her middle to pull her into his front. It was sweet of him, his fingers light against the plating he hadn't meant to dent. She ran into him, after all. He was the one that was fast enough to retract the blade.
But she couldn't let him pin her too him. Not when a growl was building in his chest and his attention was twisted toward where his brother had planted himself.
Sides was just a pace away from them. His blades still out, glittering in the late afternoon sun. He stood there bristled, armor flared and optics narrowed as he snarled over at the hulking shuttle mech slowly making his way to the edge of the training ring.
Gambit came to a stop at the edge of the courtyard. Those deep red optics flickering over the snarling crimson twin and the golden one with his arm wrapped around her gut. They then slid away as if it wasn't worth his interest and instead pinned on the cluster of startled cadets flocked behind Jazz.
The silver mech had already crossed the line of the ring—he must have come in when Sunny and Jynx hit the ground—but he stalled in the face of that unreadable red gaze. His armor was bristled, claws flexing at his sides, but he made no move further away from the cadets behind him.
Jynx didn't know if he could see what she did—the anger in those red optics—but Jazz had apparently decided it would be better to be between that hulking mech and the gaggle of rather helpless young bots behind him.
Jynx would thank him for being brilliant later.
For now, she was too busy wiggling out of Sunstreaker's hold and throwing herself forward between Sides and Gambit.
The crimson brother glanced down at her when she stepped between them, but Jynx only had focus enough for those inferno red optics. Optics that luckily enough snapped back to her when she huffed.
"Oh, I don't know, Gambit." She drawled. "Is this what you do now?"
Thin optics set in a deep square faceplate the color of empty black with that thick silver scar slashed through it, narrowed. "Is what?"
"Hide in the dark." She bit the words back at him, goading and knowing she was pushing a line as she did it. The flare of purple around his optics was worth it when all that anger focused on her and away from those that wouldn't last a nano under it otherwise. "Because it seems to be all you do now."
That massive weight shifted ever so slightly when he turned enough to stare down at her.
Jynx was not afraid.
She had never been afraid of Gambit for his physical properties.
No.
She had only ever been afraid of what Gambit could do that she couldn't stop with others.
Like how he left. Even if he hadn't wanted to.
He posed a threat to what was hers now just as he had back then.
She would not let him take it.
Not now.
Not ever.
Especially when he didn't have the common decency to come out of his thrice-dammed bolt hole to help her figure out how to find Rashact! They'd been sitting around this city now for orns!
Getting ready for war? Yes.
Was it time well spent? Yes.
Could they fraggin' use said time well spent? Yes.
Did it make him hiding away like a scrap-rat in its bolt hole any better? Not a fraggin' chance.
"You don't have a damn clue what I do now." He rasped at her, that thunder deep enough she could feel it in her struts.
She ignored it.
"And you don't have a damn clue what I do. So shut the frag up."
Those narrowed red optics flared ever so slightly with something that might have once been amusement, but Jynx no longer knew him well enough to guess.
Behind her, Jazz cleared his throat—over the growl still low in Sides' chest, as well as his brother's who had come up behind him—drawing both Jynx's and Gambit's back to him.
"We were kind of in the middle of something, mech. Is there something you need? Or can I go back to teaching my class? You sorta mess up meh teaching exercise."
Jynx would seriously like to know if Jazz had signed up to be the peacekeeper around his home or if he had kind of had it shoved on him.
"Was that what that was?" Gambit snorted, heavy arms crossing over his chest as he let his weight settle onto one hip. It was a much less threatening stance then the looming he had been doing only a few moments before, but Jynx wasn't sure if he was doing that as an attempt to accept her snarling at him, or to show how little he cared about it.
"Yes." Jazz answered shortly. "And I would like to go back to it. These cadets don't have all the time in the world here. I'd like to give them what I can."
"It won't do them any good."
Jazz's posture tensed further, optics narrowing behind his visor as the young bots behind him shuffled nervously. Sideswipe and Sunstreaker rumbled softly at her back. Jynx curled her claws into fists at her side.
She had a feeling what was going to happen next, and there was nothing she could do to stop it. Not really. For, well, Gambit wasn't necessarily going to be wrong.
But that didn't make him right either.
"And why is that?" Jazz asked.
"They still won't last five nanos out there against anything Rashact has in the way." He said it easily. Simply. Like it simply was.
And he was right.
Jynx hated it.
But he was right.
None of these bots stood a chance against something like Blackice or anything Rashact had protecting him.
But they didn't need that laid out for them like a death sentence. Optimus wasn't sending them to fight the big bad monsters in the dark. He was just trying to give them a chance of living through the rats fleeing the flood waters when those that could fight the monsters went down after them.
The young bots huddled back at the words. The twins growled. Jazz puffed out a harsh breath in the face of Gambit's smirk.
He was pleased with himself.
The bastard.
Why was he doing this?
What was the point?
"Bots" Jazz called to the young cadets. "Call it a night. Check in with your schedules in the morning and see where you need to be. You'll see your progress in your reports."
That cold smirk on Gambit's lips grew.
And something in Jynx's tolerance cracked.
"No."
The cluster of young bots froze, Jazz's gaze snapped to her, the twins went quiet, and Gambit's smirk slid away as he turned back to her.
"Sweetspark?" Jazz asked.
"The lesson isn't done yet." She went on. Optics locked on the thin red ones staring back at her. "They've got one more fight to see. This one."
"This one?" Gambit barked a laugh—what might have been a real laugh, if it hadn't sounded so cold—deep in his chest and gave a shake of his helm that made his tall audials wobble. "Which one? You and me?"
"Yes." She nodded.
That smirk gave back with a flash of shark fangs and a drum of his claws against his own arm plating. "Shorty. You're smarter than that. You know you can't best me. What do you want to show them? How to get flattened like a glitch-gnat in three nanos flat?"
"No." She shook her helm, ignoring the feeling of Sides' and Sunny's energy fields behind her. "No, I know I can't beat you with all your gravity messing slag." Letting her fists lose she waved and waggled her claws out before her in a mockery of some of the most dangerous stuff Gambit could do.
It had the desired effect.
The ebony mech bared his fangs, and the cadets perked up like hounds at a whistle.
Because, yes.
Yes, she did.
She did just tell them what Optimus and Elita and all the others had been skirting around for orns now. By not telling anyone just what and who was that made that firestorm in the sky over New Iacon.
Well.
She was.
And she was about to show them just how much of a mech was behind it.
An angry mountain of a mech that seemed to have forgotten one very important lesson himself. He was the monsters that Rashact lost control of, it was true. He was the reason it all came down around that mad mech's audios back then. He was the one that got them out.
But Jynx had kept up.
Jynx had survived until he did.
And Jynx had survived long after he left.
So, no.
Jynx couldn't fight his pull on gravity. She didn't have a chance against that. He'd squish her like a bug.
But without that?
Well.
She couldn't beat him. Not in the long run.
But she could make him leak.
And right now, that was all she wanted.
She wanted to prove to them the mighty could leak. And she wanted to remind him that he could.
It was just as she had told him down in that hallway. She didn't have to beat him. She just had to make others think they could. And what little progress they had made down there seemed to have vanished anyway so why the frag not?
He wasn't the only one here that had a reason to be angry.
He wasn't the only one that was hurt.
She was not going to let him snarl up at what was hers. She was not going to let him try and take it away.
He needed to figure out what it was he wanted from all this. Because she was tired of playing around grass cracks that didn't care who they cut in turn.
"But I can take a chunk out of you without it."
Fire burned through those narrowed optics and with a hard puff of air through his external vents and he gave a slight tilt of his chin. "Let's see then."
"Jynx," Sides grumbled under his breath as they bracket her on one side of the courtyard. Jazz had pushed the cadets back a ways further then they had been when her and the twins were simply playing, but the little white femme couldn't say she blamed him. The further out of reach they were, the better.
She wasn't sure how this was going to go in the long run.
Jazz had given her a hard look when she'd turned her back on Gambit and walked to the side of the courtyard. She had simply lifted an optic ridge over her visor and tugged at the slight link that lived between their sparks now.
The silver mech dipped his chin and turned to his students.
She would thank him for it later.
The twins on the other hand, were going to be a bit harder to manage.
"This is a bad idea." The crimson brother finished in a rough hiss. "I don't—I'm not—look it's—"
"We don't tell you what to do." Sunstreaker cut him off with a huff. Jynx resisted the urge to tell him 'no you don't', but bit it back when he went on. "And we won't try. But this is a bad idea."
"I know what I'm doing." She told them with a glance between them. "Trust me."
"We trust you." Sides huffed with a frustrated swipe at his audio horns. "You know that. It's just. Why?"
"Because he needs to either put up or shut up." Jynx bit out, flexing her claws and casting a glance over her shoulder. Gambit simply stood there on the other side of the courtyard. His arms crossed loose over his chest and his weight balanced lazily on one hip.
He wasn't even bothered.
He simply watched her and waited.
Irritation flared through her chest and whatever slight thawing that long cold link between them might have done down there in that hallway, flash froze right back.
She turned away again.
"Jynx," Sideswipe caught her gaze. "He lit the fraggin' sky on fire after he picked up a scraplet hoard with his mind. He's already put up. You're the size of his fraggin' hand."
Her sensors fluttered. "It's is spark. And I'm bigger than his hand."
The red mech latched hold of his audio horns with a frustrated snarl. "Jynx!"
She let the bristle out of her plating, turned more toward the crimson mech, reached out and caught his elbow. Tugging at the limb until he released the sensitive horn. His hand dropped within her range and she snatched it up to squeeze his fingers.
"He was trying to pick a fight with Jazz."
Sides still a bit, the frustration rolling though his frame falling away when he turned to focus on what she was saying. Beside him, Sunstreaker straightened up.
"By making me hit you? How does that pick a fit with Jazz?"
Jynx regarded him with a look under the rim of her visor. "You didn't hurt me and you know it. You were faster than me."
"Doesn't mean I like it," He grumbled. "But yes, I know. Fragger did it on purpose though, and you know it. I figured it was to piss us off, not Jazz."
She shook her helm. "No. That wasn't about you two. I don't think. He still hates Jazz's very existence. He'd rather goad him then you at the moment. At least, I think."
"But you don't know." Sides sighed, fingers tightening around where she still had them in her grip. "You don't know he won't hurt you."
"I never said he wouldn't hurt me." Jynx told him quietly. "I just don't think he wants to. But I never argued with him before, Sides. Not ever. Not back then. I didn't talk back to him. I didn't challenge him for damn sure. I only ever did what he and Arsine told me to do. He's not . . . use to anything else, I guess. He thinks he can still bluster up and growl at me and I'll tuck down and follow him like a duckling again. But I won't. Not now. I'm not that youngling that needed him anymore. And he sure is pit isn't the same mech that left. I won't let him hurt any of you and if that means making him leak in front of witnesses to take him down a peg or two so be it."
"Oh," Sunstreaker snorted. "So that's what you're up to."
"Yes," She nodded.
"But you already got him in the back downstairs that time." Sides pointed out.
"And no bot but you lot saw that." She replied, tilting her helm toward the cadets. "He thinks they are fools that are going to get themselves killed. He's not wrong that they don't stand a chance against Blackice or Rashact, but Jazz and Optimus aren't going to send them to die if they can help it. He's picking at sore spots for no reason and its not fair. Let them see he's not as unbreakable as he seems."
"Optimus and Elita hadn't told any of the civilian population who it was that did all that you know?" Sunstreaker told her.
"I know." She nodded with a twist of her lips. "He can get mad at me about it later. But the cadets aren't civilians anymore."
Sides smirked at her with that. "Good argument."
Sunstreaker shook his helm with a roll of his optics. "Oh yes, I'm sure Prowl will love it."
"Prowl will get over it." She shrugged. "Bots are going to figure out who he is eventually."
"I think Prime would prefer he be on speaking terms with his sire before that time." Sunstreaker went on.
Jynx shot him a look. "And do you think that is ever going to happen? Because I don't."
Sides gave his brother a look.
Sunstreaker shrugged. "I don't think it will happen anytime soon, no. And we don't have the time to wait. But I don't want you hurt trying to make him lighten up."
"I won't get hurt." Jynx told him firmly. "Just trust me. I don't know what he's been up, its true. But he doesn't know what I've been up to either. I'm not the same as he remembers. I could fight beside him back then and keep up. I can work around him for a while at least. I know I can't beat him, but I don't need to. That's the point."
"Alright," Sunstreaker nodded. Sideswipe gave her hand a firm squeeze and let it go.
"We'll be right here." He added.
"And he'll flatten you to a wall and enjoy it." She teased him with a smirk. "Don't tempt him."
For a moment humor flashed through Sides' optics before Sunstreaker smacked him in the ribs. "Don't make that joke."
Sides turned on him with a pout. "But—"
"No."
"It would have—"
"No."
"You're a hard aft."
"Yes."
Jynx giggled, shook her helm, and turned to face Gambit.
Stepping to the edge of the courtyard ring they had turned into the fighting area, Jynx rolled her shoulders back to loosen the tension. Gambit let his arms drop in respond to it and stepped forward in a match of her own step.
Those inferno optics blazed back at her with anger and frustration. She turned her visor black to block out what he could make of her own expression. He had always been better at reading her then she had him.
He didn't need anymore help when it came to working out what she was up to.
In her spark, Jynx figured he had a pretty good idea what she might be thinking. It was simply the most likely jump. However, she seriously doubted he thought she could pull it off. Not in a face to face fight. Getting him with his back turned was one thing. But managing to get to his weak points when he was actively trying to keep her away from them was something else all together.
She could do it though.
Because she had to.
The massive mech rolled his neck once, and across the short ring distance, she heard powerful flight engines roar to life. "Still think this is a good idea?"
She bared her fangs at him. "Do you?"
"Let's find out."
Jynx was not stupid enough to stand around and let him swing first.
In a blur of movement that had quite a few of the cadets gasping, Jynx threw herself to the right and forward. It was foolish to think Gambit would bother to move to go after her when he had such the size difference—she wondered if Jazz was going to quiz his students over that later—and so all he did was tense.
He figured she would try to get around behind him counting of speed and size to give her and edge. She let him. Because it was what she was doing, and she needed him to go with it.
Darting around his right side, she launched herself at the largest fold of the wings complicatedly resting down his back. As predicted, he twisted when she jumped, but while his swiped his claws for her she folded her limps and dropped like a rock.
The slash of claws went breezing past her when she hit the ground. She didn't give herself time to reveal in the slightly shocked noise that lodged in Gambit's throat. She was too busy digging a grip into the ground below her and flinging herself back into motion.
The swing Gambit had taken at her had left his side vulnerable, but even if Jynx had gotten a few new ticks in the time they had been apart, Gambit had survived for a reason as well.
Her next jump brought her to his side, the leap letting her latch hold of a bit of plating near his wings, but before she could so much as try and dig in said wing slammed out with the force of a thunder snap and caught her right in the shoulder.
A pained hiss left her as she was flung away, but she recovered fast enough. Landing on her back she got the air knocked out of her for a moment, but she threw herself to the side and back to her peds all the same. For not a nano later Gambit's fist smashed into the ground where she had just been.
A growl echoed around in his chest as he swiped after her back with the other hand while she jumped, spun, and twisted away from him.
Oh.
Well.
He was angry she made contact first.
Ha.
Served him right.
And so, the game of tag began.
Jynx didn't pay attention to how long they were at it. She didn't have the processor space. She was too busy scrambling around the ring in a chaos loop of twisting, flinging, jumping, and running. For every inch she gained on him she had to retreat four. But in return the same went for him. For all his twisting, slashing, and grabbing at her he couldn't get a hold of her either.
And so, on the game went.
She'd make contact, he'd knock her on her aft, but neither of them had managed to make the other leak yet.
Not for lack of trying though.
She had pissed him off the first moment she went for his wing joint. Jynx had no idea if it he thought she wouldn't have been able too, or if she wouldn't be bold enough for flat out go for his soft spots. She honestly didn't care. Gambit of all mechs should know there was no fair in a fight.
He had taught her that after all.
He so thoroughly outclassed her, his soft-spots were all the leverage she had.
Of course, she was going to go for them.
It wasn't her fault she was too slippery for him to get a good hold of.
It was his.
She was getting a little tired of this though. Not only in the physical sense, but in the game of proving she actually could make him work for it. Make him sweat.
She wanted him leaking and then she wanted this to be done.
It was time to take it up a notch.
Skidding through her last failed jump, she dug her claws deep into the stone ground sending sparks flying from the forced stop. Vents heaving, she bared her fangs in a snarl as Gambit twisted from his latest failed swipe.
Those inferno optics caught and gleamed off the black tint of her visor. His own fangs flashed as a growl rumbled through his chest. Jynx figured it was time to wrap this up.
There was pushing, and then there was pushing too far.
Time to be done with it.
Snarling right back, she used her dug in claws to fling herself forward again. The added momentum flinging her at him much faster than she would have been able to manage on her own. This time though, she didn't jerk to the side and lose the momentum in order to dodge his claws.
Oh no.
This time, she went for his front.
Running as fast as she could she managed to dodge the first swing of his massive claws. Gambit was simply too big to be able to change the swipe range on something as small as her when she was that close all of a sudden, and that was all the window she needed.
She crashed headlong into his front with a ringing thud of plating and armor, but she didn't stick around there at his chest. Instead, she dug in her claws through the grooves in his chest armor and launched herself up toward his neck.
The deep rumbling snarl in his chest was a warning when she slashed for the delicate wiring there at the base of the column of his neck, but she paid it no mind. She had a point to make.
One slash of claws already heated and glowing red from the abuse they had taken in stopping her skidding a moment before, sliced like—well glowing hot metal—through the outer edge of just one delicate energon line.
It was hardly a nick really.
Not even an important line.
It was one of the smaller, shallow lines at the outer column of his neck. It was in no way a fatal or debilitating slash.
But she hadn't wanted it to be.
She had wanted to make a point.
A point that she didn't have to go for the outer line. She didn't have to miss a clean cut that would have done a whole pit of a lot worse.
But she did.
Energon splashed in an almost slow motion out across her visor as a pleased smirk danced up her lips.
And then, Gambit backhanded her into a wall.
The resulting crash, tidal wave of pain, moments of spotting blackness, and the ringing static in her audios was . . . well, to be honest, Jynx wasn't quite sure how long it lasted.
Or how she ended up on her back staring up at the dark evening sky that was flashing spotted dots all around her optics.
For a moment, she lay there, aching all over with static ringing in her audios, and the next she was blinking stupidly up at Sideswipe's faceplate suddenly appearing over her.
His mouth was moving. She could tell that much through the blur that was her visor at the moment, but she didn't have a clue what he was saying. She couldn't hear anything over the static raging in his audios.
Slowly, she tried to shake her helm but that just made pain flare in every known direction.
She pulled in a pained hiss—though she couldn't hear it—and let her helm fall to the side because that felt better then trying to move it any other way. Sideswipe was crouched next to her, Sunstreaker was suddenly there too. He could make out his legs at least. He was crouched down over the top of her, and suddenly his long fingers were scooping up under her and trying to pick her up.
She hardly noticed.
Instead, her optics slid further past them to take in not the seeming chaos of the cadets buzzing around like agitating hive hawks or Jazz rushing their way.
No.
Her optics locked on Gambit.
Gambit, who had turned away.
Gambit who had not made it more then what looked to be three steps. Gambit that was . . . swaying.
What?
A part of her realized Sunstreaker picked her up and slid her into his lap. A part of her realized her whole frame felt like an aching nerve and she still could hear anything. A part of her realized she should probably be worried about that.
But her processor couldn't get there.
It was too busy trying to figure out why Gambit was . . . falling?
She blinked in what felt like slow motion.
One moment he was standing up and the next he had crashed down to his knees.
Jazz slid to a stop in his mad dash over to where the twins had pulled her up into Sunstreaker's lap and Sides was trying to get her to turn her helm to him. The silver mech spun back and what Jynx could only assume was the sound of a massive mech hitting the ground that hard on his knees.
Jynx blinked again.
Gambit was hunched up there on the concrete. His whole frame shaking and heaving in what a part of her register must be coughing. Though she couldn't hear it.
One hand was braced against the ground in a trembling spread to hold him up. The other was pulled up, latched at his chest, clawing and pulling at . . . his neck?
What?
No.
No, she hadn't actually hurt him. She hadn't cut deep enough to hurt him. There wasn't even hardly any energon.
She blinked again.
And then there was energon.
There was . . . lots and lots of energon.
Her spark kicked hard in her chest, a sudden surge of panic that suddenly had her able to move again. She retched herself up right off of Sunstreaker's lap and was halfway through trying to roll to her peds before her legs gave out on her and she slumped back down. She would have hit the ground had Sides not caught her and hauled her back to him.
She didn't look at him.
She was too busy panicking trying to make sense of Gambit shaking on his knees with energon pouring down his neck!
Jazz was racing back over to him.
There was so much energon. Just pouring down from—no.
No. That wasn't his neck.
The mech's frame heaved again what must have been a painful trembling cough and more energon splatter. Jynx realized with another slow blink that it wasn't coming from his neck.
No.
It was coming from his mouth. He was coughing it up.
And he wasn't holding at the tiny little cut Jynx had made to his neck. He was clawing at his chest. Digging into his own plating and drawing even more energon as he trembled.
Jynx hadn't done that.
But . . . what was doing that?
The world shifted as Sides rolled her into his lap. His and Sunstreaker's face's suddenly coming back into view, and no matter that she tried to twist and wiggle toward Gambit she couldn't get loose.
She tried anyway, hardly away she was hissing out a panicked jumble of Gambit's name.
Then, suddenly, the static that had taken up residence in her helm fell away under the panicked sound Jazz's voice over the comm line open between the Prime's circle.
"Ratchet! Ratchet! Get the frag out here! Now! Ratchet!"
Then before Jynx could register any answer or even the sound of her own panicked, pained wheezing Sunstreaker's fingers slid up the side of her neck, and with a slight pinch—the world went dark.
That was way more fun then it should have been. XD
I hope you guys liked it! I can't wait to hear what you think!
See you next chapter!
-Jaycee
