Day 9 (cont.)

Lunch had went by well enough, although a bit quitter than previous ones. When it was over, the group was ready to head back to the library and search through the archives, save for a select few. Blast Off told everyone he and Swindle were sitting this one out, Beachcomber wanted to stay in his room, and Rewind and Chromedome said that they had to talk to make sure the relationship between them was okay. After that, the group of 21 headed for the archives for their next search for whatever they want.

"Alright, let's see if there's anything good on here," Jazz muttered as he began his search on the archives. "Trillions of sources should be able to offer something." So far, in the past days, he's search everything related to the academy that he could be bother to search through, which was way too much for any sane being. Nothing had come up from the search and he knew that he would have to try something else to find any useful information about the place.

"Problems?" Dead End asked next to him, already beginning his search for poetry.

"I don't know what to search for to find any information about this place," Jazz confessed to him. "I've looked up every possible avenue that could be used to find any information: construction, headmaster, resources, everything."

"You should probably look for a less direct approach to it," Dead End told him.

"Like what?" Jazz asked.

"Well, you can't get anything about the birth of it, but there is obvious signs that indicate that this place has been around for longer than we imagined, so it would probably be best to look for the place between now and the beginning," Dead End recommended.

"The place between us and now…" Jazz murmured. "The events, like that science fair."

"A good place to start," Dead End agreed, not looking at him.

Jazz typed in anything involving events that involved the school. It didn't take long before results came up, first and foremost being the grand opening of the school. He clicked on it and looked up the article. In it was a description of the grand opening. All of the teachers were there as well as the students and several prominent figures in current politics, including the three leaders of the three factions. In fact, the only one not there was the headmaster, which was commented as strange by the paper, but the person representing him commented that he was a introverted individual and said that the event should be concentrated on the teachers and students.

Humble, but suspicious.

There was a photo gallery involved with the event. Jazz clicked on it and searched through the photos. Most of it was just mingling between the students, teachers, and guests mingling with nothing important going on in the group. The most notable picture was at the end, where all thirty of the teachers were grouped together for a photo op together. All of them were standing together and most of them had a smile on their face. There was a few of exceptions, most notable Shockwave, Soundwave, Dead End and Bludgeon. The former two stared emotionally while the latter two was sulking depressingly and scowling at the camera with contempt, respectively.

Jazz thought he would remember something like this happening.

Aside from that there wasn't much more information. The news article declared it an important milestone in Autobot and Decepticon relations and would hopefully set a standard to everyone that they need to work together to bring Cybertron back to the golden edge. While the relations between Autobots and Decepticons have strained with the NAILs barely acting as the diplomat between the two despite their hatred for both of them. With this event, it would be the first time the group would be working together in non-Reconstruction efforts and would be an excellent standard to people that they could inhabit the same space together with citizens. Jazz had to admit, it seemed like the event was a really big one. Relations between the three groups were improving, but this might be enough to get them to settle down for good.

Jazz really hoped everything was going good outside.

"Thirty minutes," Dead End muttered to him.

"Uh?" Jazz asked, confused.

"Thirty minutes until door closes," he repeated.

"Oh. Thanks," Dead End thanked as he went back to the rest of the sources. "So, what are you searching up?" Jazz asked as he went to the next page.

"Literature and poems," Dead End told him. "Right now, I'm looking into the works of Sky Byte."

"Sky Byte… he's that beat poet guy, right?" Jazz asked.

"Correct," Dead End confirmed. "We talk to each other quite a bit and collaborated a few times."

"Huh, sounds like you two get along," Jazz noticed as he clicked on an article about the school.

"Good enough," Dead End agreed, ignoring him to go back to looking at his poems.

Jazz looked at the next article. It was about the year-long anniversary of the school's opening. It went into detail about the important things of the year and how the school was holding up as an education place. So far, the school had only been involved at the science fair Bludgeon and Nautilator found earlier. Relations between the Autobot and Decepticon teachers were going fairly well, in context of what had preceded it. The students were meeting their standards, which meant that the education was going well. Overall, things were going better than expected.

So what went wrong?

"Time to go," Dead End announced to him.

"What?" Jazz asked.

"Door's about to close. Let's move," he told him, heading for the door.

"Already?" Jazz asked, surprised.

"Yes, so let's go."

"But I've barely even-"

"Now, before the door closes," he urged him, leaving him behind. Jazz gave a grunt of annoyance before getting up and following Dead End out of the archive and back to the library. A minute later, the door closed, leaving them and everybody else locked out of the room. "Well, that went by way too fast," Jazz muttered to himself.

"So, did you find anything?" Onslaught asked Jazz on the third floor lounge. The two sat next to each other on the bar as Blurr went between them and Swindle and Blast Off.

"Well, searching through the events, I figured out conclusively that we taught here for at least a year," Jazz told him, taking a swig from his cube of high-grade.

"Seriously? Then how come we haven't been able to remember any of it?" Onslaught asked him, taking a drink of high-grade as well.

"I don't know. I just know that there are documented records of us having taught here," he told him.

"Really?" Blurr asked as he slide in to the conversation. "So, you're telling me that the three of us actually went to this place to teach a bunch of snot-nosed brats?"

"In a matter of speaking, yes," Jazz answered him.

"Well then, I'm glad I don't remember it," he told them as he took a swill of some low-grade.

"You think Chromedome might be able to unlock those memories?" Onslaught asked the pair.

"Well, he is a mnemosurgeon," Jazz muttered to himself. "We could certainly see if he could do it."

"Well, that's going to have to wait a little bit," Blurr told them. "You saw what happened to them when their personalities got screwed up. They're too busy giving cheesy apologizes and declarations that they will each other forever," Blurr snarked.

"Seriously?" Onslaught asked.

"I don't know. It's just what I read. Do you know that a lot of neutrals like to romanticize the war between us?"

"Woah, are you serious?" Jazz asked.

"Yeah, I'm not kidding. Do you want to know how many stories I've seen that involved you two screwing Prowl?"

"Too much information! Too much information!" Jazz screamed out, blocking his audial receptors.

"That is… disgusting," Onslaught murmured.

"Oh, trust me, it's nothing compare to the amount of secret trysts that Optimus and Megatron have together," Blurr told him.

"You can't be serious… right?" Onslaught glared at the racer for an answer. Blurr returned it with a blank stare. "Oh, Primus dammit!" Onslaught murmured to himself.

"Why do you even look these things up?" Jazz asked him.

"What, you think I look for this things on purpose? The problem is that there is so many of them that running into them is impossible to avoid," he told them. "The things I've done in those things… I'm sure at least half of them are impossible…" he drifted out, letting what he said in the air.

On the sidelines, Swindle and Blast Off watched in bewilderment at the scene going on not far from them. They didn't quite know what was going on, but decided it was best not to involve themselves in it and Blast Off suggested heading to his room, which Swindle readily agreed.

"Fight harder!" Bludgeon yelled to Drift as the two sparred on the staged in the auditorium.

"I'm trying, but I excel with words, not fists," Drift replied as he blocked a fist head only to fall to the floor as Bludgeon kicked his leg out from under him. Before he could react, Bludgeon put his knee to the base of his back and grabbed ahold of his wrists and pulled them backed, causing pain to shoulder joints. "Ah! I'm positive this isn't metallikato move," Drift complained in pain as he struggled to get out.

"It isn't and I believe I am victorious," Bludgeon said as he left go and walked off away.

"Woo! Alright!" Nautilator cheered as Bludgeon came out as the victor, out of his seat.

"Alright, that was well done," Ratchet reluctantly admitted next to Nautilator in his seat.

"Hey!" Drift yelled out to Bludgeon, who turned to glared at him as he got up. "How about round two?" he asked.

"Why? In combat, you only have one chance to kill your enemy and survived. There would never be another chance," Bludgeon questioned the swordsman.

"Well, we're not in a warzone, are we? Besides, do you have anything better to do?" Drift asked him.

"No, I don't," Bludgeon agreed, "but my point still stands. If we were fighting, you would be dead."

"Yeah, well, I imagined there might be a different result if swords were involved," Drift told him. "Swords is what I excel at."

"But it doesn't matter in this instant."

"It doesn't, but don't you imagine in a battle if something turned out different? I mean, if we fight again, I'll know some of your tricks and could give you more of a challenged," Drift reminded him.

"Hmm, I am in need of keeping my abilities sharp," Bludgeon agreed, getting into a fighting stance. Drift silently gets in his fighting stance as well and the two engaged in sparring again.

"Huh, your guy is a bit aggressive," Nautilator said to Ratchet as the fight started again.

"Well, he used to be one of your guys," the medic told him.

"Wait, he was?" Nautilator asked, surprised.

"Yeah. You might've known him back then as Deadlock," Ratchet told him.

"That's Deadlock?" he whispered surprisingly.

"Yes, it is."

"Oh," Nautilator muttered. "He really loves fighting fist-to-fist now."

"I'm not privy to all the details, but he apparently gave up guns and only uses swords and hand-to-hand combat. Personally, it's really limiting in combat, but he gets by," Ratchet confessed to him. "What about you and Bludgeon?"

"Uh? Oh, well, I only met him when I arrived here with the rest of you, although I heard a lot of the stories about him in combat. You know, about how he mercilessly slaughter all who got in his way," Nautilator told him.

"And your opinion of him?" Ratchet asked.

"Well, he's blunt, but he seems respectful enough of other people," the (un)luckster answered honestly.

"Hmm, figured. Do you think he'll tried to kill anyone?" Ratchet asked him.

"Ah, well, his reputation says yes, but judging by his attitude, I wouldn't think so. He's not the type to murder in secret and would probably be found out as the culprit if he did ever murdered anyone," Nautilator told him.

"That's what I figured," Ratchet murmured.

"Personally, in all honestly, I think I would watch out for Counterpunch or that psychopath that's hanging around," Nautilator told him.

"Wildrider?" Ratchet asked.

"Who else?" Nautilator said. "That guy is full on nutso and wouldn't hesitate to kill any of us to get out."

"He does have a lack of self-preservation," the medic agreed. "He would kill someone just because he wants too." He glared at Nautilator. "Why are you so suspicious of Counterpunch?"

"He's just so unfriendly. I don't trust him," he answered simply.

"He definitely doesn't seem like the cuddly type," Ratchet agreed.

"Well, two trials in and both of them were successful, so I don't think anybody is going to try anything else, at least for a little while," Nautilator commented on. "I mean, everybody saw what happens when you fail to get away with it."

"Combine that with the fact that getting away from it would be condemning everyone here to death and very few would be morally capable of pulling it off," Ratchet said as Bludgeon took Drift down for the second time.

"Alright. I give," Drift murmured as he clenched his head.

"You were decent. I am interested in how you fight with your sword," Bludgeon complimented as he lifted Drift to his feet with his hand.

"Yeah, I feel the same," Drift agreed as he stabled himself. "You're a good fighter."

"As are you, but not as good as me," Bludgeon said as he descended from the stage and for the door.

"How modest of you," Drift muttered sarcastically as Bludgeon left the room. Drift leapt down from the stage and walked up to the two still in their seats. "What's going on?" Drift asked.

"We're talking about the probability of anymore murders," Ratchet answered.

"Well, contemplate all you like, but that means nothing until we see what the next motive," Drift told him as he took a seat next to him. "Monobear, for all his sadism, is creative and knows how to get people riled up. Who knows what kind of chaos the next motive could bring."

"Hmm, true, but what could it mean?" Ratchet asked.

"Well, it was about the past haunting us, right? So it will be about how biggest secret, right?" Nautilator asked them.

"That's what I'm thinking, although I wonder if he truly has everyone's secret," Drift told them. "Besides, I doubt whatever he has would really get me to murder. Most of you know about all my dirty little secrets, so I see no reason to keep it a secret from you guys," Drift explained to them.

"If he's talking about dirty little secrets, I can definitely think of one thing he could use against me," Ratchet told them, wringing his hands together.

"Oh come on. It can't be that bad. At least, not any worst then the things I've done," Drift told him.

"It still causes me to lose sleep every now and then," Ratchet muttered as he turned towards Nautilator. "What about you? I'm sure you have at least one terrible secret you're keeping from us."

"…Maybe," he whispered, rubbing the back of his head. "I really hope he doesn't know about that."

"Well, I guess we'll find out about that tomorrow," Drift answered as he got up. "Come on, let's go see if everybody else is doing okay."

"Thank you for helping me open the door," Nightbeat thanked Mixmaster as he used acid to eat through the locks of the door.

"No problem," Mixmaster said as he concentrated on the lock. "I don't hold any grudges and if this helps us find a way out, of course I'll help you. Just don't make any more drug remarks."

"Alright, fine, although you should get someone to help you with that."

"He's right you know," Scavenger agreed as he popped another oil ball in his mouth and brought another one out and offered it to Nightbeat. "Want one?"

"I guess so. Nothing wrong with it," Nightbeat shrugged as he took it and put it in his mouth. Scavenger got another one out and offered it to Counterpunch next to him.

"You want one too?" Scavenger asked him.

"Choke on it," he answered simply.

"Got it," Mixmaster said as he pushed the door open. Inside was a maintenance hall of some sort that went forward before splitting off left and right.

"Just as I thought," Nightbeat said as he swallow the oil ball. "A maintenance hall. More than likely, it circles around the whole area to provide access to the other stores here," Nightbeat said as he examined it.

"Think we can find anything useful in there?" Scavenger asked him.

"Honestly, probably not," Nightbeat answered. "Still, couldn't hurt to look through it."

"Well then, let's get started," Mixmaster said as he entered the hallway, the rest following behind him.

"So, Onslaught is going insane," Swindle said as he and Blast Off entered the latter's room together.

"He's just overloaded. The stress must be getting to him and I don't blame him," Blast Off defended, closing the door behind them.

"Yeah, well, I think all of us are at least going a bit insane," Swindle muttered as he took a seat in a chair. "Some may look like they are taking it okay, but I think we're all scared inside."

"I agree with you on that one," Blast Off agreed as he took a seat across from Swindle. "Paranoia is settling in. Two people have already murdered. Who else will?" Blast Off asked him.

"I really don't want to know, just as long as we don't die," Swindle told him. "You feel it, right?"

"Care to elaborate?" Blast Off asked, although he didn't have to ask to know what.

"That emptiness inside," Swindle told him. "The one that Vortex and Brawl used to fill."

Blast Off paused before he answered, "Yes."

"They're really dead," Swindle muttered. Looking away from him. The two sat in an unnerving silence for a little while, wondering what to say.

"You were the last one to see Vortex alive, aside from Brawl, right?" Blast Off asked him.

Swindle flinched before he answered, "Yes."

"What was your final conversation about?" Blast Off asked him.

Swindle paused before he asked, "Do I have to tell you?"

"No, you don't, but I want to know," Blast Off answered.

Swindle thought it over before he asked, "Promise you want to get mad?"

"No, I won't. If I wanted to hurt you, I would've done it by now," he answered.

"How comforting," Swindle muttered as he leaned back in his chair and thought about the event. "Okay, here's how it went."

Swindle entered the library like the note had asked him to do and headed for the stairs, knife in hand. Vortex had asked him to come to the fifth floor of the library and he decided to go up there against his better judgment. It seemed odd, but unlike everybody else, he trusted Vortex, along with their leader, Onslaught. Despite that, it seemed odd to ask him to come to the fifth floor library instead of his room or anything like that.

Swindle traveled up the staircase quickly and looked around to see Vortex behind a banister, waving over to him, his form barely visible with the only part standing out were his red optics. He walked over the catwalk to Vortex who was smiling softly at him.

"Someone's here early. How you're doing?" he asked softly.

"Fine," Swindle muttered harshly. "Why did you call me up here?"

"Well, I don't want to talk to just you," Vortex told him.

"Come again?" Swindle asked, surprised.

"I invited Brawl and Blast Off up here to talk to them," Vortex told him.

"What?! Why?!" Swindle badgered him, getting in his face.

"You said that we couldn't trust them, that they are going crazy, but I'm going to prove you wrong. They'll come up here, we'll talk to them, and you'll see that we can trust them," Vortex told him.

"I told you to keep me away from that fool's errand," Swindle told him, getting in close.

"Swindle, this place feeds off your paranoia," Vortex told him, turning around and heading to behind the bookshelf. "Look, let me show you," Vortex beckoned. Swindle paused, wondering if he could continue to trust him, before taking a leap of faith and followed him. "Careful of the jagged corner," Vortex told him as he scanned the shelf. Swindle took note of it and dodged it, walking towards Vortex.

"What do you want to show me?" Swindle asked him.

"This," he said, pulling a datapad out of the shelf and giving it to him. Swindle glared at it before grabbing it with his free hand and glanced over.

"A bunch of psychology experiments," Swindle muttered, "authored by Rung."

"He collected data from all of these experiments, both moral and amoral, and put them in this datapad with his own personal notes in them. Don't you see, Swindle?" Vortex asked him.

"No, I don't. What am I missing?" Swindle asked him.

"This thing that we're put in is just a psychology experiment at a lethal level," Vortex told him. "This place uses scare tactics like those motives to get us not trust one another and get us to kill each other. Swindle, you're paranoia is exactly what he wants." Swindle glanced up at him before thinking it through. It made sense. This could all be a psychological study done by one sick fragger who is doing this for research. Maybe he should calm down…

…

…

…unless Vortex is doing it to get his guard down and kill him.

"Swindle, are you okay? You look disturbed by something," Vortex murmured, looking at him weirdly.

'Scrap," Swindle thought to himself. 'He knows I'm catching on to him."

"Hey, are you okay? You trust me, right?" Vortex asked.

"I don't know," Swindle murmured. "Why do you want me to put my guard down."

"So that you don't attack them the minute they come of here," Vortex explained.

"Why aren't they here? Are you lying to me?" Swindle questioned, backing away from here.

"That's because you're here early," Vortex reminded him. "You're worrying over nothing."

"Stay away from me!" Swindle yelled, bring his knife up. Vortex stopped and pit his hands up.

"Okay, Swindle, just put the knife down and let me help you," he tried to soothe him. "Nothing is gained from doing this. Let's just wait for Blast Off and Brawl to come-"

"No! I'm leaving and heading back to my room. You're just as untrustworthy as they are!" he told him, backing up.

"No, Swindle, let me help you," Vortex commanded, striding over to him quickly and grabbing for the knife.

"I knew it!" Swindle yelled out the two struggle a bit with the knife and collided with the bookshelves.

"Swindle, calm down and let me help you!" Vortex yelled at him as he tried to get the knife out of his hand.

"Shut and let me go!" Swindle yelled as he struggled with the knife and pushed forward, accidently letting his knife pushed forward.

STAB!

"Aug!" Vortex yelled as the knife lodged in his side. "Swindle, just-"

"Shut up!" Swindle yelled as he swung the datapad in Vortex's face, causing him tostumbled backward.

SHCK! THUD!

Vortex collapsed to the floor on his side, his head bleeding from a gash in it, unmoving and the jutted corner of the bookshelf sported plenty of energon from it. Swindle glanced at the form on the ground, a sense of relief in him, right before he realized something. Vortex wasn't moving. The wound in his head looked deep and the corner had a lot of energon on it. He didn't kill him, did he?

He wasn't acting crazy.

…

…

Was he?

Swindle kept silent as he stopped telling the story. Blast Off starred silently at Swindle as he listened to the story he told him. He wanted to know what happen and he knew Onslaught wanted to now, so he had to debrief him later, but it still was uncomfortable listening to Swindle's madness at the time. Still, there was one thing he wanted to know.

"Swindle, do you still have that datapad on the psychological experiments?" Blast Off asked. Swindle blinked before answering.

"Uh, yeah. I'd subspaced it after the encounter. Here," he told him and brought it out and gave it to him. Blast Off grabbed it and looked at it. It was a regular datapad, although there was a few scrapes on it, probably from where Swindle smacked Vortex with him. In it, he found psychological experiments carried out by many different species, mostly Cybertronians and humans. "Is there a specific reason why you want to see that?" Swindle asked him.

"I don't know, but I'd rather hold on to this for later reference. It could be useful to compare this to our current endeavor," Blast Off answered.

"If you said so," Swindle muttered.

At seven, the teachers regrouped in the lunchroom and talked about things. Nightbeat told people about the maintenance hallway in the mall area that had stairs in it to lead to the other floors and had doors to enter the back of the shops, except the storage area. Aside from that, no other important things had happened to the group and most of them mentioned that they would probably turned in early today.

"What up?" Blurr asked the two new arrivals as they entered the bar third floor lounge at 8:30.

"I just want some energon," Hoist answered and Blurr did as wanted, giving him a cube of energon.

"What about you, Smokescreen?" Blurr questioned.

"Do you have mid-grade," Smokescreen asked.

"Yeah, Mixmaster made some after spelunking the maintenance halls," Blurr answered, getting a cube out and setting it before him.

"Thanks," he replied, taking it and gulping it.

"So, what did you do today?" Blurr asked.

"Fixed a centrifuge for Perceptor today that broke," Hoist answered, taking sips of his energon. "Aside from that, nothing much."

"I investigated the mall a bit more and discovered that the bar allows for gambling so I did that," Smokescreen answered.

"Alright," Blurr said. "You two are very boring."

"Excuse me for not having a major character defect," Hoist remarked as he took another drink.

"Hey, I like to gamble. Don't blame me. It's the whole reason I was invited here in the first place," he answered.

"True, true, but you could make it interesting," Blurr told them. "I mean, I at least expect better from Smokescreen."

"We're trapped in a building with a limited amount of entertainment. Complaining about me doing something uninteresting is complaining about a construction worker only constructs buildings," Smokescreen shot backed, downing the rest of the mid-grade. "Okay, I feel good and buzzed. Now would probably be a good time to go recharge for tomorrow," Smokescreen said and he got up and left.

"Well, just me and you," Blurr said to Hoist and he finished off his energon. "Unless, of course, you want to leave me too," Blurr complained.

"I think I'll stay. I've got nothing else to do."

"Reading poems?" Mirage asked Dead End in the library.

""Yes, I am," Dead End replied, not even glancing up at him.

"Which one are you reading?" Mirage asked, taking a seat across from.

"You are well-read, correct?" Dead End asked.

"Yes, I am," Mirage agreed, not knowing what Dead End is getting at.

"Well then, I'll read you a verse and you tell me which poem it's from," Dead End questioned him.

"Oh, a challenged?" Mirage asked, intrigued. "Well then, read away." Dead End glared at the affluent ex-senator before looking back at his datapad and started reading.

Life drowned in linear time

For the greatest crime

In order to atone

The greatest power must be overthrown

Dead End stopped and glared at Mirage. "Your answer."

"'Life Atoned' by Tyst," Mirage answered.

"Correct," Dead End said, a mild trace of surprise in his tone. "He's not very well known."

"Well, I like to make sure that I am the most well-read person in any room," Mirage answered. "If you're not more intellectual than another person, than you were consider lesser than the person."

"Ah, the life of a senator," Dead End said.

"Yes, it was a very competitive place. It was based on how smart you were and how well connected you were. If you weren't good at both, the other senators would walk all over you and your opinions," Mirage told him.

"Strength in numbers," Dead End muttered.

"More like forcing the loners out of the inner circles," Mirage told him.

"Ah, so a game of survival was played from the bottom all the way to the top," Dead End said.

"Correct. The strong feeds on the weak. That was how being a senator went and if you fell from grace, well…." Mirage slide his finger across his neck and made a slicing sound.

"How… brutal," Dead End muttered, looking back at his list of poems.

"Yes, it was, and considering our current situation, I'm not seeing much of a difference."

"This is an announcement. It is now 10 PM. Please rest peacefully," Monobear said over the intercom.

"It's getting late," Hoist said to Blurr.

"You bet it is!" Monobear shouted, jumping on top of the bear, to the brief surprised of the two before getting over it real quickly.

"What do you want, Monobitch?" Blurr questioned the teddy bear.

"You're still using that immature nickname?" Hoist questioned the racer.

"You're complaining?"

"No."

"Hey!" the bear yelled at them. "Don't act like I'm not here. I got needs."

"Oh, really? What can I give you that doesn't involved death?" Blurr questioned the bear.

"Simple, I want a nice cube of high grade," the bear asked him.

"Oh, is that all?" Blurr asked, surprised.

"Yes!" Monobear answered.

"Alright," Blurr complied, getting a cube of high-grade out. Monobear smiled greedily. Blurr positioned it for Monobear to grab it. Monobear raise his hand to grab it only to have Blurr tip it over onto the bar. "There. Lick it up," Blurr mocked.

"Uh-oh," Hoist murmured, gently sliding his chair away from the pair. Monobear glared at the racer, getting ready to tear him apart.

"What are you going to do?" Blurr asked. "I haven't broke any of your rules so you can't do anything to me," he mocked.

"You right, I can't, but I can expedite our process," Monobear threatened.

"What does that mean?" Blurr asked.

"It means, get to the auditorium now for the motive!" Monobear shouted at the racer. "I'll make an announcement to get everybody up," he finished, walking out of the lounge.

"Well, good job," Hoist snarked.

"Shut it!" Blurr shouted, jumping over the bar and heading of the bar. "Let's go."

Within ten minutes, everybody arrived at the auditorium, all tired and wanting to recharge.

"Why are we here," Bumblebee muttered follow by giving a yawn. "I really need to recharge."

"The motive," Hoist said next to him.

"Right now?" Bumblebee asked, surprised. "Why?"

"Blame Blurr," Hoist answered, nudging the racer next to him. Bumblebee glared at him.

"Welcome," Monobear cheered happily. "Welcome to your next motive."

"Please, get it over with. I want to recharge!" Wildrider yelled at the teddy bear. "I like you, but I also like recharging."

"Alright, alright, simple. Judging from the conversations you've been having, some of you have already figured what this is and it's quite simple: your darkest secret expose!" the bear shouted to them.

"So you're going to reveal everybody's secret to everyone here?" Skywarp asked.

"Nope, there is a twist. I will be giving each of you one datapad that has three things on it. Your secret, so you know what it is, six names of your fellow teachers, and another secret. One of the six names on your datapad is the one with the dark secret. Every twenty hours, one name will be go away until one person is left at the hundredth mark except for one special datapad."

"Okay, so what, dude? It's just the 26 of us. I'm sure we can keep a secret," Beachcomber said.

"That's where you wrong. At the hundredth hour mark, the secret will be broadcasted all over the world," Monobear threaten them, "and, looking through the secrets, some of you would really want to keep it a secret."

"You're joking, right," Nautilator chuckled. "You wouldn't reveal our secrets to the entire world… right?"

"He's locked us up in a building where the only way out is to kill each other. I think he means it," Bludgeon told the (un)luckster.

"….Scrap," Nautilator murmured, deflated in his seat.

"Now then, when I called your name, come get your datapad," Monobear told the group as he brought one out from a box. "Ratchet, you're up first."

"Perfect," he muttered as he went up, took one, and looked at it. "I should really be more surprised that you know this, but I'm too tired to care," Ratchet said, walking past the bear and back to his seat. Slowly, one at a time, everyone went and got there datapad, reacting with a mixture of surprised, fear, and tiredness. It all kept going until he reached the last person.

"Blurr, for annoying me the most, I'm giving you the darkest secret in the whole school," Monobear told him. "Use this wisely," the bear told him. Blurr gave a groan, went up there, grabbed it, and looked at it. When he looked at it, he felt like he was punched in the gut.

Blurr accidently murdered his racing rival.

Ratchet, Smokescreen, Chromedome, Nightbeat, Mirage, or Perceptor

One of them is a mole working for Monobear.