"Is this a joke?" Bumblebee asked, staring at the creature.
"A joke? Of course not!" Monobear answered happily. "Now, before any you start freaking out, let's go over the ground rules in this Academy of Mutual Killing!"
"Mutual killing?" Hoist wondered.
"Okay, first off, welcome students to you new home forever!"
"New home?" Onslaught asked.
"Forever?" Knock Out wondered.
"Students?" Rewind wondered.
"Wait hold on! Were you just confused by me calling you students?" Monobear asked Rewind.
"Uh, yeah. We were invited over by the letter as teachers," Rewind answered. Monobear looked at him oddly before looking behind the podium for something.
"Hold on. Hold on. Ah, found it!" Monobear exclaimed, coming back from the podium. "A sample letter to you bastards that shows that-" the bear paused. "What the heck? It does refer to you as teachers. No matter, I'll just have to change my wording a bit," the teddy said, putting away the letter. "Anyway, any of you going to complain about being here forever?"
"Does it matter? We're just going to blow ourselves a way out of here or the Autobots and Decepticons outside will bust in and rescue us," Drift replied. At that, the bear looked at him oddly, before giving a hardy laugh.
"Autobots and Decepticons… Coming to save you… that's rich!" the bear said, before composing itself. "Anyway, I don't know why you want to leave. You all decided to come here."
"That was before the academy became a prison," Perceptor replied back.
"Dude, this doesn't make sense. We all need to get back home," Beachcomber said.
"Didn't I just tell you that his is your new home?" the bear chastised, before continuing its spiel. "Anyway, there is a way out of here," the bear said, leaving hope in some of the teachers' sparks.
"A way out? Than tell us already before I crush you," Counterpunch threatened, pounding his fists together.
"In order to leave you must graduate! Or whatever the equivalent amongst teachers is. Retirement, maybe?" the bear wondered, scratching its chin. "Meh, I'll just keep graduation."
"Just tell us how to graduate already," Swindle complained.
"Alright, alright. In order to graduate, you must… get away with murder!"
"What!" came a chorus of people at the same time.
"Uh-hun. That's right. Ever better, every single one of you before has killed, which makes things much more interesting," the bear cheered. "Of course, most of those were nameless nobodies you didn't care about. This? You know people and you're going to have to kill them! That a thousand times more exciting than just murdering nameless mooks all day long!" Monobear replied happily. "Oh, the competition is going to be great this year."
"Okay, this stupid," Skywarp said, getting on top of the stage. "Either this is an elaborate prank or you're a moron if you think we're just going to follow you're rules," Skywarp threaten.
"He's doing something stupid," Jazz whisper to Soundwave.
"Very foolish."
"Hey, wait until I'm done explaining everything," the bear ordered.
"No, you listen, you dumb bear," Skywarp threaten, grabbing the bear and bringing the thing to chest level.
"Ah! Rule breaker!" the bear shouted, before suddenly going stiff.
"What the-? Can anybody tell me what happen to the bear?" Skywarp asked, not noticing the ticking coming from it.
"Ticking? Wait…" Nightbeat mused before suddenly realizing. "Scrap, throw it! It's a bomb!" he shouted.
"What?" Skywarp asked.
"Throw it, you idiot!" Vortex yelled. Skywarp looked worried, before quickly throwing it into the air. Not long after, it exploded in mid-air, surprising the teachers.
"Was that bear a K-class? Oh, man, I wished I fragged it," Wildrider complained, causing a couple of people to look at him strangely.
"What's a K-class," the bear asked, coming from behind Skywarp and now at waist height.
"What the-?" Skywarp asked, jumping back.
"Ah, doom bots. I should've known," Shockwave noticed.
"As for you," the bear said, pointing at Skywarp, "consider that a warning." Skywarp nodded dully, heading back to his seat. "Now then, before I leave, I got something to give you," the bear announced and clapped his hands, causing a box to come out of the ground. "In here are your electroID cards. When you turn them on, they display your name, so no excuses for picking the wrong one! In there, among other things, is a list of rules to follow during your stay here. Read those before you decide to do anything. The rest of the rooms in this building will now open. Now, ta-da stu-, uh teachers. Man I wished I was still dealing with students," the bear puffed before disappearing out of sight. Everyone looked at each other, taking in the words that the bear had said. In order to get out, they had to kill each other?
"Alright, everybody," Bumble started, getting on the staged. "We'll discuss what the bear said later. Let's all get one of those electroID cards," Bumble ordered, heading to the box and opening the box. He grabbed it and turned it on. "Hound, this is yours," he said, waiting for the bot to come picked his up. This kept going until everybody got one. Bumblebee, having finally got his, turned his on. Immediately, it showed his named among a white background before showing a table of contents. Bumblebee quickly clicked on the rules section and looked at the rules.
1. Teacher may never be allowed to leave the academy under any circumstance, except for graduation.
2. The period between 10pm and 7am (human time, Bumblebee noted) is 'Night Time.' Certain areas will be off-limits in this time frame, some electrical appliances will be offline, and the lights will be on backup power.
3. Teachers may only sleep in there dormitory apartments and nowhere else.
4. Available areas of the academy may be explored without limitations. More areas will be explored as time goes on.
5. Destroying the cameras are against the rules and any perpetrators will be punished.
6. Violence against the Headmaster, Monobear, is strictly forbidden.
7. Graduation: In order to leave the island, a teacher must successfully murder one of his or her fellow teachers, and not be found out by the others. Only the teacher who has successfully hidden his or her guilt will be permitted to leave.
7.1 A murder will be announced once three uninvolved teachers have found the body
7.2 The culprit can murder no more than two other teachers
8. More rules will be added when necessary
"You know," Bumblebee noted, "aside from rule 7, these are all reasonable, or at least what I expected from an academy."
"Yeah, but this academy expects us to murder each other for someone else's sick pleasure," Chromedome reminded him. "Did anybody take rule 7 seriously?" he asked the room. No one answered. "I guess we'll find out soon enough."
"Listen," Jazz announced. "I say we take the time to explore the rest of the area and see what the bear unlocked. We'll deal with the other buildings when those open up to us," he said to the room.
"I agree. It would be the most logical way to assess the situation," Shockwave agreed. "The electoIDs mentioned that this building has five floors. We should separate into groups of six and investigate them," Shockwave recommended.
"Alright. We got a job to do," Bumblebee said to the group. "Let's get to it.
"Looks like we found the cafeteria," Hoist said as they entered the room.
"Cool," Jazz said as he looked around the place.
"Could be useful," Onslaught said, looking around the place. He went and entered the room in the back. "Hey, there's a lot of energon here!" he yelled out. Everyone came in to look at it.
"That is a very healthy amount," Knock Out mentioned.
"We could survive on that for at least a few days," Nautilator agreed.
"And it doesn't look contaminated," Drift noticed.
"And it restocks every day!" Monobear shouted from behind them.
"Gah!" Nautilator shouted and jumped back, accidently crashing into the pile of energon. The pile came down, trapping him in it.
"Are you sure he's Ultimate Luck?" Monobear asked.
"What is the reason for your presence?" Onslaught asked, ignoring the floundering Nautilator trying to get out of the pile of energon.
"Just to inform you about the restocking. Having you rationing out would make you least energetic when it comes to making the kill," Monobear explained.
"We won't take part in your games, dude," Drift rebutted.
"So they all say. So they all say," Monobear left off ominously as he disappeared.
"What exactly did he meant by that?" Knock Out asked. Jazz gave an idea.
"I don't think we're the first to play his games."
"This looks like the dormitory rooms," Bumblebee noticed as they came to an extremely long hallway. The hallway was indeed long, with fifteen doors on each side. He was with Blurr, Hound, Vortex, Brawl, and Scavenger. "Let's see what they look like," he ordered, everyone quickly heading to their designated room that had his name and a small sprite on it. Bumblebee looked and saw that it required his electrode and slid it over the device. The door unlocked and Bumblebee pushed the handle, opening the door.
The room was very nice, Bumblebee decided at an instant. It was a lavishly sized room, incorporating a bed, drawers, shelves, and tables. In the other room, Bumblebee noticed it was a private bathroom, holding a shower and a sink. Could be useful if he wanted to clean his chassis. The window was boarded just like the other windows, a metal plate boarding the windows and there was a camera in the room. Bumblebee searched the rest of the room, looking in the drawers and closet for anything that could help him out. Once he concluded his search and found nothing, he headed back in the hall to see everyone except Vortex waiting there.
"It looks like they want to keeps as well-kept while we're here," Hound noticed.
"Yeah, it actually has a shower. Something to clean myself with," Scavenger gleefully said.
"Don't get too happy. This is just to lower our down," Blurr warned. "Did anybody else noticed the patterns with the rooms?" he asked them.
"Pattern?" Bumblebee asked.
"Yeah, every room has someone from a different faction either next to them or right across from them," Blurr told them.
"Probably to make us keep our guard up," Brawl replied.
"Yeah, probably, although there was a deviation," Blurr said.
"Who?"
"Counterpunch. That guy is surrounded by Decepticons," Blurr responded.
"Hmm, the mystery about that guy deepens. We don't know his talent and he's surrounded by Decepticons? Has to be suspicious," Bumblebee thought.
"Yeah, might be. Anyway, where's Vortex?" Brawl asked. At that moment, Vortex came out of his room.
"Woo, that was awesome!" he said, stretching his arms.
"What was awesome?" Brawl asked.
"What? You didn't hear?" he asked them.
"Hear what?" Hound asked.
"Weird…" Vortex muttered. "All of you come to my door. I think we just found something useful about these rooms," he said, heading back to his doorway. The others glanced at each other, looking suspicious, before going to the doorway. They arrived to see Vortex preparing for something. "You ready?" The all said yes. "Good," he said, before beginning his thing.
"AHHHHHHHHHH!" he screamed, causing all of them to hold an hand to their audio recepotors. Just as suddenly, he closed the door, silencing his screams. The others looked surprised, looking at each other oddly, before Vortex opened the door, as normal as before. "You guys heard me after I closed the door?" he asked.
"No, thank Primus," Bumblebee responded angrily.
"Ah, good, than that's proof. These rooms are soundproof," Vortex told them, causing everybody to look at each other.
"Soundproof," Hound muttered. "This means…"
"Somebody can murder someone in their room without anybody hearing," Blurr finished.
"Looks like the art room," Beachcomber said, as the group walked into a room.
"Ah, art. The one thing I always sucked at," Rewind complained.
"I think everybody sucks at it," Chromedome said.
"Oh, Deady. Isn't art your thing?" Wildrider asked him.
"Poetry," he replied.
"I hope some of them speak of warrior's death," Bludgeon remarked.
"Some, yes," he replied. "They talk about a lot of things. Politics, war, death…"
"Practically the things Cybertron was founded on."
"Ugh, don't remind me," Beachcomber ordered. "We're done with that."
"The first two, maybe, but death?" Dead End paused, waiting the for the little blue bot's attention. "Death is a constant."
"Finally, something good has been discovered," Perceptor said as he entered a room to see a laboratory.
"This whole floors looks to be dedicated to the endeavors of science," Shockwave noticed.
"Which I'm sure pleases you very much," Blast Off murmured from the side.
"It is certainly an improvement of the situation," Shockwave answered, heading to the chemical cabinets. Mixmaster was standing off from the side, observing a selection of chemicals silently while Ratchet and Swindle were in another room by themselves in what appeared to be an infirmary. "With the chemicals here, we could be able to create a way out of here."
"Forgive me for being cynical, but I doubt the bear would just let all this chemicals out in the open if he didn't make sure the walls could withstand whatever you can come up with," Blast Off remarked, standing with his back to the wall with his arm crossed.
"Maybe, but there's one than more way out of any building than with just explosives," Shockwave replied, looking at a bottle of acid in his hand. "We could always melt our way out of here."
"Hmm, maybe."
Meanwhile, Ratchet and Swindle was looking at the tools in the infirmary. "Holy scrap, these are some really good blades," Swindle mentioned.
"How would you know?" Ratchet asked, observing the scalpel.
"You see that scalpel you're holding?" Swindle asked. Ratchet nodded. "That's made out of a synthetic diamond alloys as well as every other blade here. Everything else here made of some of the best stuff available on the market. This set easily reaches into the tens of thousands range," Swindle educated. "There's also a backup set that uses obsidian blades."
"So, if someone was hurt, I could fix them easily," Ratchet replied.
"Of course, that is if you can reach them in time," Swindle replied, leaving it off on a solemn note. Ratchet understood what he implied.
A murderer would make sure someone was dead before they found them.
"Hmm… this looks interesting," Nightbeat murmured, looking at the sole room that made up the fifth floor. Inside, on the opposite side, was a giant TV. In front of them were several consoles, each with many screens on them.
"A/V room," Soundwave said.
"I imagine you and Rewind will spent a lot of your time here," Smokescreen mentioned off-handily. "You two spent most of your time on these things or filming others."
"I hate it," Counterpunch remarked. "I want to smash them."
"Dude, seriously, you need to calm down," Skywarp mentioned, messing with a console. "All you say is murder this or smash this. You need more unique dialogue than that," he chastised.
"Mocking him is a good way to end up in danger," Mirage warned.
"Relax," Counterpunch said, surprising them. "If I were to murder someone, it would be one of you Autobots, not my own side. I'm not a traitor. I followed Megatron's order to the letter."
"See, you're on the verge of saying something," Skywarp mocked.
"Of course, I can make an exception."
Afterwards, the groups met up in the cafeteria an hour later to over what they had found on each floor. Jazz's group took the lead, describing the first floor in detail. Besides the cafeteria, there was a gift shop, garbage disposal room, and the classrooms, along with a cargo elevator that went down and a infirmary. The second floor concentrated mostly on the dormitories, not having much else except for another infirmary on that floor as well. The third floor was a lot more art focus, having many rooms built for it as well as a couple of supply closets, a lounge, and another infirmary in it. The fourth was science based, having many labs in it as well as another lounge area in it. The fifth was just the A/V room, having nothing else in it.
"Well, looks like we got a lot to do in this building," Drift mumbled.
"Tell me, did anybody else noticed the closed off doors on their floors?" Jazz asked the group.
"Now that you mentioned it, our floor had two areas closed, each on opposing ends.
"As well as ours," Perceptor mentioned.
"Same," Rewind said.
"Ditto," Skywarp agreed.
"Hmm, it seems there is more to this building that we're excluded from. Perhaps time will provide us a chance to check it out," Drift wondered.
"Like we're going to be here long enough to look at them," Counterpunched countered.
"Good point."
"Anyway, what time is it?" Scavenger asked the group.
"According to the clocks here, which are on Earth time, it's 7:30 P.M. Getting pretty late," Bumblebee answered.
"Well then, let's have some energon and rest for the dead," Beachcomber suggested.
"Yeah, I guess that's fine. It's not like anybody took the stupid bear seriously, right?" Drift asked the group.
"Alright. First, since we need to work together, let's push these tables together so we can all sit in one group," Onslaught recommended. "It will help build trust among us."
"Onslaught, I can't you're making us do this again," Swindle sighed, getting a table. Eventually, the group formed a rectangle, featuring ten on two sides and five on the others. Onslaught and Beachcomber grabbed the energon and handed to everybody, who all took a seat together; sitting in-between members of the other side, to make sure the other side could trust each other. The only one who didn't was Counterpunch for numbering reason, who sat in-between Skywarp and Bludgeon.
"Alright," Jazz began, taking after taking a gulp of his energon, "why don't we introduce each other? The war was big, so I doubt we all know each other." The group stared at each other before consenting. "Alright. I'm Jazz, as I'm sure most of you know. Ultimate Audiphile.
"Brawl. Brawler. Shouldn't have been too hard to figure out."
"Mirage, Ultimate Scion."
"Dead End. Poet."
"Bumblebee. Scout."
"Mixmaster. Ultimate Chemist."
"Blurr. Ultimate Racer."
"Skywarp. Ultimate Prankster, baby."
"Counterpunch." He didn't say his talent.
"Bludgeon. Ultimate Metallikato Expert."
"Drift. Ultimate Swordsman."
"Nautilator. Ultimate Luck. Didn't specify which."
"Hoist. Ultimate Repairer."
"Blast Off. Sniper."
"Rewind. Archivist."
"Wildrider. Ultimate Manic, WOO!"
"Chromedome. Mnemosurgeon."
"Onslaught. Tactician."
"Beachcomber. Geologist.
"Swindle. Merchant."
"Smokescreen. Gambler."
"Knock Out. Fashionista."
"Ratchet. Medic."
"Scavenger. I'm, well, Ultimate Scavenger."
"Perceptor. Ultimate Scientist."
"Shockwave. Logician."
"Hound. Preservationist.
"Vortex. Interrogator."
"Nightbeat. Detective."
"Soundwave. Communications Director."
The group memorized each other's name and talent for future reference before heading to different topics. Most of it was about how long before the Autobots get them out of there and about Monobear. The consensus was that they would be here soon and that the bear was really a cover for the real headmaster, whoever they are. Eventually, it went onto too more trivial things, like where everyone was living and how they were helping the Reconstruction effort. None of them went to discuss the killing that the bear wanted them to do to each other, preferring to keep it casual.
No one wanted to think about killing each other. Not yet, anyway.