Chapter 6: Meet The Blurr Team
The next morning, Hot Shot was looking out at the view from the boxcar he and Alex were riding in when they passed by a billboard that said "Welcome To Crown City!" on it.
"Crown City?" Hot Shot asked.
"Must be where this train is headed." said Alex.
"Yeah, perhaps." agreed Hot Shot.
Eventually, the human-Cybertronian duo felt the train slow down, then come to a complete stop. When Hot Shot looked outside, he found that they were at another train depot.
"Looks like this is the end of our ride." he said.
Just then, they heard footsteps.
"Uh oh!" Hot Shot gasped.
Hot Shot then looked at Alex.
"Now might not be a bad time to get out of here." he suggested. "I'll transform into my ATV mode and get us out of here."
"Agreed." nodded Alex as he gathered his things.
Once Alex got his things together, Hot Shot, after grabbing his own bag, opened the other door of the boxcar and transformed into his ATV mode, and Alex climbed aboard with his bindle and guitar case.
"You might wanna fasten your seat belt." Hot Shot told his friend. "This is going to be a bumpy ride."
Alex nodded and complied. Then, once Alex was secure, Hot Shot revved his engine and took off like a rocket from the depot, leaving an enormous cloud of dust behind. Once there were out of the depot, Hot Shot slowed down a little until he was just under the speed limit.
"So, where do we go from here?" asked Hot Shot.
"Maybe into the city." said Alex.
Hot Shot nodded and drove into the city, where he drove slowly through the streets to remain inconspicuous with the other cars. Alex then spotted a bookstore.
"Can you stop here?" he asked.
"Sure." replied Hot Shot.
Hot Shot stopped at the bookstore and Alex got out.
"You wait right here." he said. "I won't be long."
"Alright." said Hot Shot.
With that, Alex got out of Hot Shot and went into the store.
"What's he doing?" Hot Shot thought to himself.
His answer came later, as Alex came out of the store holding a small paper shopping bag.
"Whatcha got, Alex?" Hot Shot asked.
"Maybe it would be better for you to see it in robot mode." Alex replied.
Hot Shot couldn't believe it.
"Are you nuts?!" he asked. "What if someone sees?!"
"Don't worry, your secret is safe with me." Alex winked.
"Well, okay then." said Hot Shot.
Hot Shot then transformed into his robot mode, and Alex handed him the bag. When Hot Shot looked inside, he found a burgundy red-colored book with an intricate cross on the front cover and the words "Holy" and "Bible" and the letters "K", "J", and "V" on the spine.
"Is this a bible?" Hot Shot asked.
"Yes." Alex nodded. "Since you were curious about what it teaches, I decided that you should have your own."
"But how were you able to pay for this?" his Cybertronian companion asked.
"I travel around the country doing whatever jobs people ask me to, and they pay me." Alex explained. "And when I'm unable to find one, I simply turn to busking. I set my guitar case on the ground and play my guitar and sing songs. If I'm lucky, people will drop money into the case."
"Makes sense." said Hot Shot with a smile.
"Well, Hot Shot, we've come a long way, and it's time we parted." said Alex.
"So long, Alex." Hot Shot said. "I'll never forget what you've done for me."
"Likewise." replied Alex.
Alex then thought of something, and he handed his harmonica to Hot Shot.
"Here." he said. "You can have this if you want."
Hot Shot was surprised.
"But don't you want it?" he asked.
"I'll just get another one." Alex replied. "They're not too expensive. Besides, now you'll have two things to remember me by."
"Good point." agreed Hot Shot as he put the harmonica and his new bible in his bag. "Well, thanks again."
And with that, Alex collected his bindle and his guitar case and the two parted ways. Hot Shot transformed into ATV mode and drove down the street. He eventually found his way out of the city, and once he was beyond city limits, he decided it was safe to turn back into his robot mode and walked on. As a means of entertaining himself while he walked, he took out the harmonica and started playing it. He eventually saw what looked like a junkyard in the distance.
"What's that?" he asked as he stopped playing the harmonica and put it back in the bag.
Hot Shot set off in the direction of the junkyard. He was just nearing it when he saw another billboard. This one said "Vintage Salvage Depot For The Discriminating Nostalgist".
" "Vintage Salvage Depot for the Discriminating Nostalgist", huh?" Hot Shot asked himself out loud as he read the lettering. "I wonder who lives here."
Hot Shot entered the junkyard and began looking around. Just then, an orange, black, and red mech with a samurai motif and a blue and white femme jumped out in front of him, their weapons drawn.
"Who are you and what do you want?" the mech asked.
"Identify yourself." the femme commanded.
Hot Shot was too frightened and intimidated to talk.
"Oh, I see, following the old Code of Silence, are we?" the femme asked.
The femme then turned to her companion.
"Drift, call Blurr and ask him to come over here." she ordered.
"As you wish, Strongarm." Drift replied.
Hot Shot gulped.
"Boy, I'm in so much trouble now." he said to himself.
Soon, a lighter blue and white mech named Blurr arrived.
"What's going on here?" he asked.
"We caught this intruder browsing around the place." Strongarm told Blurr.
Blurr then looked at Hot Shot and saw how frightened the latter was, then looked back at Strongarm and Drift, his optics filled with pure indignation.
" "Intruder"?" Blurr asked. "Him? He's just a mechling! Honestly, you two should be ashamed of yourselves! This is no way to treat visitors!"
Blurr then noticed the Autobot symbol on Hot Shot's Mul-T-Cog badge.
"After all, he's an Autobot like we are!" Blurr continued.
Strongarm and Drift got a look at the aforementioned symbol on Hot Shot's badge, and right away realized the mistake they had made, and then they holstered their weapons. Blurr then looked at Hot Shot.
"Sorry about that, kid." he said. "I see you've already met Strongarm and Drift. They can get a little...aggressive at times."
"So I see." agreed Hot Shot. "And you are?"
"Blurr." Blurr replied. "What's your name?"
"Hot Shot." Hot Shot replied.
Blurr's optics widened with surprise.
"Oh, so you're one of those Recruits Heatwave told me about." Blurr said.
"You know Heatwave?" Hot Shot asked in surprise.
"Yup." Blurr nodded. "I've worked with him, Chase, Boulder, Blades, and the Burnses before."
Hot Shot was astonished.
"Come on, Hot Shot, I'll introduce you to the others." said Blurr.
Blurr, Drift, and Strongarm took Hot Shot to a different area of the junkyard, where two smaller mechs who were black, red, and orange in color with samurai motifs like Drift, except one had red as his primary color and black as his secondry color and the other had vice versa (black as his primary color and red as his secondary color) were sitting at a table with a chessboard set up on it while two more mechs played a game of cards with a teenage boy Cody's age with dark brown hair, blue eyes, and dressed in a two-toned teal letterman jacket with the letter "R" on the left chest area, jeans, and red sneakers. As for the two mechs, one was red and what looked like a faux-hawk on his head and the other was a small orange one with wheels instead of legs and feet compared to the others.
"Sideswipe, Slipstream, Jetstorm, Russell, Fixit, we have a guest." Blurr announced. "This is Hot Shot."
Everyone went about greeting Hot Shot and introducing themselves to him.
"Nice to meet all of you." said Hot Shot.
"You too." replied Fixit.
"Say, what are you doing all the way out here in Crown City?" asked Sideswipe.
"Yeah, don't you like it back in Milford or Griffin Rock?" added Slipstream.
Hot Shot fell solemn at Slipstream's question.
"I ran away." he said.
Everyone else was shocked.
"You did?" Drift asked. "Why?"
Hot Shot told them why he had become a runaway, during which he tried to keep himself from crying even though his optics were filling up. Ultimately, he just couldn't do it and the tears began to flow again, and Sideswipe comforted him while Fixit fetched some rags.
"He didn't!" Drift gasped.
"He did." Hot Shot sniffed.
Drift became very angry.
"If he shows his face here, he's going to get it!" he told himself.
"Well, young bot, you should know better than to run off without telling anyone where you're going." said Strongarm. "Primus knows how worried sick Heatwave must be!"
That, I'm sorry to say, didn't do any good. All it did was make Hot Shot more upset.
"Uh, Strongarm, you're not helping." said Blurr.
"Yeah, this little guy needs comfort." added Fixit.
"Oh, alright, fine." groaned Strongarm.
"But Strongarm is right." Russell said to Hot Shot. "Running away was not the best idea."
"I guess so." Hot Shot sniffed as he wiped his optics with a wipe. "But I sure showed Heatwave."
"Yeah, you did." said Blurr. "You showed him how mean you can be. Isn't it better to try and solve problems instead of running away from them?"
And that's when Hot Shot found the error of his ways.
"Oh, what have I done?!" he lamented. "I am such a long way from home now and I have no idea how to get back! I practically abandoned my friends back at the Academy for nothing! They don't even know where I am!"
Hot Shot cried even harder than he had before.
"Poor guy." said Fixit.
Just then, Blurr had an idea.
" 'Scuse me for a bit, would you?" he asked.
His comerades nodded, and Blurr went to a seperate location. Back at the Academy, Bumblebee and Wedge were doing some cleaning work when Bumblebee heard someone calling him on his comm.
"Hey, Wedge, I need to take this." he told his mentee. "Think you can finish up on your own?"
"Sure." replied Wedge.
"Alright." nodded Bumblebee.
Bumblebee then went inside and answered his comm.
"Bumblebee here." he said.
On the other end, as you might have guessed already, was Blurr.
"Hey, Bee, it's Blurr." Blurr replied.
"Oh, hey, Blurr, what's up?" asked Bumblebee.
"Not much." said Blurr. "What's up with you?"
"Well, we kind of have a little crisis going on back at the Academy." Bumblebee answered.
"It wouldn't involve someone named Hot Shot, would it?" Blurr asked.
Bumblebee was surprised.
"How do you know?" he puzzled out loud.
"Because he's right here with me and the others at Denny's junkyard in Crown City!" Blurr replied.
End of Chapter 6
A.N. The reason characters from the 2015 Robots In Disguise cartoon were seen in this chapter is because BigMoose01 pointed out that RID, Rescue Bots, and RBA all take place within the same continuity, although he doesn't consider RBA to be canon.