Okay… took me a while to think a' somethin' else… but uhh… this is a nonsense chapter, with a LOAD of stuff to go on hopefully… yesssssss…. Also, the beginning of one of the best prank wars ever takes off, maybe rivaled by the one that will show up in 'A New Bot in Town' …and argh, I'm leaning to a pairing that is SO overlooked its scary… and NO, I'm not being a fangirl and hooking her up with Sideswipe or Redalert… nooooo…… anyhoo, its someone else. Sideswipe'll get someone soon, as will another pretty lonely Autobot… eh-heh, there, I ruined it. T____T oh well. Read. Now. I commandeth you!
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Chapter 8
"Hhehehehehahaha! Dude, that was AWESOME!" Hotshot said though his laughter, clapping Caitlin on the back.
^_^'' "Aw, that was nothing…"
"Nothing? You made a monkey outta Cyclonus!" Sideswipe responded, also chuckling.
"-With a less than desirable technique," The harsh voice of Scavenger added stiffly.
"Aw come on Scavenger, give her a break! She got the job done!"
"Barely." He quipped, shooting Hotshot a 'shut up' glare. "And for that very reason, Prime has requested that I train you."
"WHAT?! YOU train ME?!"
Scavenger's stern look became a smug grin. "Do I need to repeat myself?"
"AWWWW! THAT'S BOGUS!" the femme whined, letting her hands fall to her sides limply.
"No, that's the way life goes. Now stop complaining. You have a few hours before your first lesson, so try and get used to your body as best you can… perhaps you should choose a Transformation while you're at it."
Caitlin whined, and turned to leave. "Great. Just when I thought I'd never have to speak the word 'school' again………"
Once she was gone, Hotshot turned to his former teacher. "…You ARE gonna go easy on her, right?"
"…Why should I? She does indeed show potential…"
Hallway:
As Caitlin stalked down the hall, she began to think of the coolest/most wicked alt mode. She had heard Jetfire complain about being the only Transformer to have the ability to fly, so she definitely wanted something that could fly… but what?
She could be an eagle if she wanted, easy enough, but an alt like that wouldn't give Scavey a hard time… What about… Her mind wandered, and soon something hit her. It wasn't a living creature, but with the proper tweaking, she would be awesome!
An hour later…
Caitlin walked out of the medbay, after helping RedAlert with the design for her alt mode. Silently, she thanked Kazuki Takahashi and the game that inspired her transformation. At the same time, Rad, Carlos, and Alexis had entered the base, and rounded the corner just as Cait did.
"AHHH! DECEPTICON!" Carlos shouted suddenly. "RUN FOR YOUR LIIIIIIFE!!!!"
She stopped walking and stared down at the three. "Uhh… no? I'm an Autobot…" She told them slowly, not sure about what to do next.
"Who are you?" Rad was the first to ask.
"Umm… a friend? Yeah, I'm kinda new here…"
Alexis, Rad, and Carlos all exchanged skeptical glances. "We mean your name."
"Oh… uhh… Well… you wouldn't believe me if I told you…"
"Oh yeah?" Alexis responded. "Try us."
"Umm… Oooookayyyy… Well it's me… Caitlin."
The three exchanged skeptical glances, and then burst out laughing. "HAHAHA! GOOD ONE!!" Carlos said though his loud laughter. "No really, what's your name?"
Caitlin put her hands on her hips and looked down at them. "I'm NOT kidding… RedAlert brought me back in this body…"
Rad turned pale. "You… you really ARE her, aren't you?"
She kept a straight face and nodded. "Yup… it's me."
The three stared for what seemed like ten minutes, until Caitlin realized that she had to get to the training hall in about a minute and a half… and she remembered how Scavenger was when Hotshot forgot he had a training session… "Look, I gotta go… I have a training class like, right now…"
"You mean Scavenger's training you?!"
"Unfortunately… yes…BUT… I was smart enough to pick a Transformation that'll keep him on his toes…"
Carlos noticed the dragon-like wings that were tucked over her back. "No kidding dude… well I don't want you to be like, late…"
"Yeah… so I'll see you all later!"
And with that, she unfolded her wings and took off toward the training hall, already a few minutes late. When she zoomed into the darkened room, she thought she was the only one there. "Hah, and I was worried that he would already be here…"
"And I am." Scavenger's harsh voice quipped from an unseen direction. "It's not the best way to start of your training by being late…"
"Well this isn't exactly tenth grade biology or something…" she said under her breath.
"So you're back talking me now too?" His voice seemed to be growing closer, and was turning a bit more hostile.
As a human she had the liberty of doing such a thing, but didn't suffer any serious repercussions short of being dangled twenty-odd feet above the ground and given a long-winded lecture. She still felt she had that over him, so she nodded into the dim light rather confidently.
"Then you'd better be on your guard!"
Caitlin jumped at his shout, and was greeted with a slam from her left. "Agh! HEY!"
"What? Am I being too harsh on you?" He mocked from some unseen direction.
"You wish, Scavenger!"
"Heh… You've certainly kept your tenacity, despite your death… Admirable…"
She listened as he spoke, and honed in on his deep voice easily. "Transform!" she shouted, jumping into the air, but fell flat on the ground, still in her bot mode. "What!? I can't transform?! What a rip off!"
The lights flickered on, but hardly illuminated the huge room. Then, she heard Scavenger's footfalls near her. "You're not focusing on transforming. Now on your feet and try again."
She pulled herself to her knees and then sorely stood, her pride damaged more than her body. "Okay… focus..." she inhaled, and thought about changing into her alt form. "….Transform!" She shouted, jumping into the air.
This time, Caitlin felt something strange happen. Her knees reversed direction, and the four spurs on the back of her thigh swung around to replace her feet, and become long, sharp talons. Her head slid down between her shoulders, so for a second she seemed without a head, and the long muzzle that was folded down her chest (ala Starscream's nosecone) popped up, now held high by a long, thick neck. The horns on that head swiveled around, so that they were now swept back, and her wings expanded fully. Last, her five-fingered hands reverted up into her wrist, and the three-fingered claws that were on her elbow slid forward, so that she had long sharp claws in place of her hands. Caught up in this transformation (and wanting to possibly spook Scavenger), she gave a metallic roar, and exhaled flames from her mouth.
She was a massive, blue-green and silver dragon.
Her tutor grinned. "Very impressive! Now, the question is, can you use that form to your advantage?"
"I think I already know the answer to THAT…" Giving a dragon-toothed grin, she took to the air and swooped down, ready to strafe the bulldozer Transformer. He sidestepped easily, and grabbed the dragon by the tail, then giving a harsh yank, which caused her to fall from the air and land face down. "….Ow…."
"I think I also know the answer. You can't." He stated flatly, looking placidly at the grounded dragon before him. "Now try again."
Giving no thought to her next move, she flicked her tail to the side, knocking Scavenger off his feet. With a thud and a grunt, he was on his back, and within seconds, Caitlin had him pinned beneath her, her dragon mouth half open and glowing with red-hot embers. "Is that good enough for you?" She said calmly, not breaking optic contact with him.
"No." He answered just as calmly, as he brought his knee upward and rammed it right into her unguarded midsection. With a gasp, she went limp for a second, which gave the larger Transformer time to shove her off and into a wall. She landed on her dragonlike rear, and winced sorely.
"No fair…."
"You need to drop that attitude, Caitlin," He told her sternly. "Because real combat ISN'T fair. Now get up and try again."
She didn't like this side of the former mercenary. With her Dragon form softly scowling, she got to her feet, and opened her wings once more, preparing to attack again. With little more than a battle cry, she launched herself at the mech. "TAKE THIS!" She raked her claws forward, and suddenly noticed that they were glowing! Scavenger caught this as well, and tried to dodge. But he couldn't move his large frame fast enough, and felt the red-hot claws cut several deep gashes into the left half of his chest armor.
Grunting from the bit of pain he felt, he swayed, but then lashed out at Caitlin hard, his fist connecting with her midsection once more. She rocked back, and was sent to the wall once more. "Hmm. Not bad. But you're nowhere near your full potential."
The femme transformed back into her normal mode, but scowled again at his criticism. Expecting him to tell her to get up again, he muttered, "That's all for now. Rest a bit and practice. Hopefully then I won't humiliate you TOO badly…" He turned and walked out of the training hall quietly, leaving Caitlin with her thoughts of the little defeat….
Later…
Hotshot hefted a large metal box up onto a shelf, with the help of Scavenger and Optimus, while RedAlert was typing away at a computer console. "Hey Optimus… why are Jetfire and Caitlin doing all of those chores? I thought that was my job…"
"Well it seems that instead of bringing their misdemeanor out into the open, I'd rather just have them work their punishment off…"
Windracer had walked past the open door, and had caught ear of the last statement from her commander.
"Punishment? ….ohhhhh, you mean those pranks!"
Scavenger shot Hotshot a glare at the remembrance of the humiliating bubble encounter. "What pranks?"
"You mean you didn't know that Jetfire and Caitlin were the ones that pulled the tar and feather and the bubble pranks?"
Optimus' spark stopped for a moment. "You… heard… that…?"
Caitlin stopped cold. 'HOW THE HECK DOES HE KNOW?!' she thought to herself.
RedAlert was now interested. "…So you're saying that they framed you for those pranks?"
The yellow mech nodded. "Yup. AND they were the ones that stuck the ink in my Energon a while back…"
'Ohhhhh boy, THIS ISN'T GOOD!' she turned on a dime and made a beeline for Jetfire's quarters. Quickly, she burst into the V.C's room, resulting in the said mech falling from his chair in surprise. "JETFIREJETFIREJETFIRE!!!! WE HAVE A PROBLEM!!!"
"What, WHAT?!"
"Red and Scavey FOUND OUT!"
"Found out?! What are you…" He stopped cold. "Oh…no… not about…"
She nodded vigorously. "Exactly, but HOTSHOT told them!"
"He was eavesdropping probably… oohhhh but this really really really ain't good…"
"No kidding! I have a training session with Mr. Personality in a few hours!"
"Nah, he wouldn't try anything… That'd be too obvious. He'll try something when you least expect it…"
"…He's that big a threat?"
Jetfire sighed. "You and I are great pranksters, no doubt about it, but RedAlert and Scavenger… when they were young… Primus above, they were the KINGS of practical jokes!"
"So we're THAT doomed?"
"Well they won't hurt us… not
physically anyways… but they'll more than likely humiliate us… ten TIMES worse
than what we did to them…"
"Or a lot of very humiliating
ones… But what about RedAlert??"
"Don't even get me started… Lets just hope that neither of us end up in the medbay for ANY sort of reason whatsoever…" Jetfire told her grimly.
"Liiiiiiiike, what would he do, switch our voice boxes out for someone else's or something…?"
"'T wouldn't surprise me in the least… we just gotta keep our guards up and watch each others' backs."
"You got it." She then sighed, as she checked her internal clock. "Dang, I'm gonna go practice some battle tactics… Maybe this time Scavenger won't TOTALLY kill me…."
Jetfire chuckled. "Ah, don't sweat it. But panic if he starts to go easy on ya…"
"Thanks. I think…"
"Well go already, I get the feeling Prime's gonna come in here and tell me about Hotshot's overactive mouth… And I'm gonna think up some good counter-pranks a' my own…"
"You're turning this into a freaking war…"
"….so???"
She sighed. "Nevermind. I'll see ya later."
"Later!"
And with that, the Dragon Transformer headed to the training room, and got ready to begin her lesson…
TBC
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*quoting Yoda* Begun, the prank war has… DUN DUN DUUUUUUUUN!!