Hey, it's still Friday, so it counts. Not too proud of the ending, but hey, new relationship introduced, so that's fun! Hope you guys enjoy!
Kay held her arms wide, sprinting towards the barely still Cybertronian wolf with a happy shout.
"Alpha!" The femme dropped her muzzle to the ground, nuzzling against Kay with a mechanical purr.
"It's good to see you again, Kay," the wolf stated, finally sitting back. Her violet optics were glowing in her happiness and Kay was beaming herself, glad to be able to see a majority of Bots again. She glanced around the side of Alpha, waving happily and running towards where Optimus, Ratchet, and Ironhide were circled, talking about something.
"Hi, guys!" she exclaimed, leaping and wrapping herself around Ironhide's leg in a hug. The mech glanced towards her with a raised optic ridge, though she could see the smallest of smirks pulling at his face.
"The longer you hold onto my leg the longer your run tomorrow morning." Kay let go immediately, switching to Ratchet's leg.
"Nice to see you, too, Hide," she said from her position, slightly surprised with her ability to hold herself up. Ironhide would be mad if he found out just how much she slacked on her workout routine while in college; the only reason he wouldn't be infuriated is because he would be making her run at that very moment.
Ratchet gave Kay a smile but still gave his leg a, very careful, shake, a hint Kay took quickly. Without a word she dropped to the ground and spun, taking a running leap to hug Optimus. The Autobot leader gave Kay a bright smile, actually crouching and carefully lifting her upwards to his eye level.
"Welcome back from college, Kay," he said with a warm smile. Kay smiled brightly, hugging at the digit nearest her.
"Thanks, Optimus!"
"I trust you enjoyed yourself?"
"I trust your grades are exemplary?" Ratchet quickly interjected before Kay could answer. Kay gave a small frown at that.
"I got my first B like, ever," she grumbled, now avoiding eye contact with the Bots.
"Are you sad about… that again?" Kay heard Bee call. His holoform very suddenly appeared beside her on Optimus' hand, clutching her face between his hands. "Kay, like you said, it's your first B ever, and your GPA is still fantastic. Don't let this drag you down, okay?" Kay took in a deep breath and nodded, smiling towards Bee and his calming smile. He leaned forward and placed a quick peck on her forehead then dispersed in a shower of sparks.
"With what little research I managed in these last few seconds, this seems like a minor inconvenience," Optimus added, looking towards Kay with slight concern. Kay nodded again, taking another calming breath.
"Yeah, I know. I just have this perfectionist problem. I'm working on finding the balance between complacency and perfectionism." Optimus went to speak but a large explosion echoed from somewhere behind the hangars beside the group, Kay shooting her head towards the explosion with her eyes glowing in preparation to use her powers.
Instead of the reaction she was expecting, however, Optimus sighed, Ratchet pulled a wrench from his subspace with a colorful assortment of curses and threats, both in English and Cybertronian, and Ironhide simply held his old friend back with an annoyed roll of his optics.
"What the heck was that?" Kay demanded, looking between Optimus' exasperated expression and Ratchet's apparent desire to destroy a car jack. She quickly glanced towards Bee, seeing his doorwings sag in relief as Jolt explained the situation to him.
"An Autobot scientist named Wheeljack," Optimus explained. "He's a genius but-"
"He's a fraggin' glitch-head," Ratchet growled, pulling his arm from Ironhide's grasp with a short growl. Kay released her power, the yellow glint of her glowing eyes disappearing from the reflection in her glasses.
An Autobot, black simply from soot, limped out from behind a hangar, giving a sheepish wave to the group. Kay gaped, her eyes locking on what her mind supplied was an audio fin as she watched a small fire burn happily, spewing surprisingly black smoke into the air. Ratchet marched forward, a wrench in hand, and smacked the scientist with an audible clang straight on the small flame. It sputtered angrily twice then died in an impressive burst of black smoke.
"What were you trying to build this time?" Ratchet demanded through a growl. "You haven't even been here ten cycles, how do you have the supplies to experiment?"
"Well, I was trying to-" Ratchet shot a hand up, the wrench waving threateningly.
"No, I don't want to know. Come on." Kay maintained her silence as Ratchet marched off with Wheeljack towards the Med Bay, not even blinking until the two were out of view of everyone else.
"He seems fun," she commented, earning a laugh from Ironhide and a chuckle from Optimus.
After leaping from Optimus' servo, earning a half-hearted angry reprimand from Bee, Kay ran around and met with everyone else before depositing her things in her usual room. Upon opening the door she was met with a loud, excited meow, KiKi leaping from a new perch high in the room to excitedly circle Kay's legs. Kay squealed in happiness, plucking KiKi from the ground and smothering her with kisses. The cat accepted a total of four kisses before giving a now annoyed meow and swiping, without claws, at Kay's face. Kay ignored her and gave her five more kisses and a large, squashing hug before finally releasing her. KiKi gave an annoyed hiss but the swishing of her tail revealed the action was half-hearted at most.
"Missed you too, KiKi," Kay cooed, beginning to pull some clothes out of her duffel bag she had packed.
Kay had left her room for less than a minute to gather some fresh water for KiKi, but it was enough time for a new holoform to settle himself into her bed, petting KiKi with a happy smile. Kay froze in the doorway, glancing towards where her duffel bag was sitting open beside the small dresser. Apparently, it wasn't visible enough. Kay carefully cleared her throat as she set the water bowl down, leaping upwards when the holoform jumped and sent KiKi flying into the air. KiKi, upon landing safely in Kay's arms with her claws planted firmly in flesh, turned to the holoform and gave a hiss.
"I'm so sorry, feline!" the holoform exclaimed, blue eyes wide and glowing bright in his surprise and apology. KiKi gave him another short, angry hiss as he started forward, the holoform quickly stopping with his arms raised.
"It's fine, she's not too angry," Kay managed through a clenched jaw, carefully pulling KiKi's claws out of her arm.
"Really? How do you know?" The holoform questioned with pure curiosity, inspecting KiKi intently while staying a safe distance away.
"Oh, well, her tail, first."
"Her tail?" Kay nodded and pointed to the limb that, while low, was not flicking violently, but rather had hit Kay twice during the angry hiss but had calmed down now.
"Yeah. When cats are angry, they flick their tails sharply, lower their ears, their fur raises, and they let out angry growls and hisses. She isn't doing any of that, though you definitely scared her."
"Oh, that's great to know!" the holoform said happily. There was silence for a few moments, Kay watching the holoform watch KiKi. He appeared middle-aged, like Optimus, stuck between the limbo of older than Sides and Sunny but younger than Ratchet and Ironhide. His hair was pitch black, his eyes bright blue, and he wore jeans, a black shirt, and a white leather jacket with three stripes down each arm; two green with a red in the middle.
"So, um, who are you?" Kay finally asked, glancing to her duffel bag. It was still there, still in the same messy configuration as before, so there was no way she was imagining it.
"Name's Wheeljack," he replied cheerily, looking up at Kay. "Who're you?"
"I'm Kaytlen Genesis, though most people call me Kay." Wheeljack smiled widely.
"Oh, you're Kay? It's great to finally meet you!" he said, holding a hand out. Kay carefully let KiKi jump to the ground then grabbed Wheeljack's hand with a smile. Her eyes quickly widened in surprise as Wheeljack shook the limb fast and furiously. "So you're learning some type of engineering, correct? You should join me in my lab sometime! It'll be great to work with an open human mind, not one of those conniving government officials!"
"Oh, ok," Kay managed, her arm vibrating even after Wheeljack let go. He continued to stand there, a kind, happy smile on his face. "So, why are you here?" Kay asked, carefully ensuring her tone of voice was kind rather than mean. She was incredibly frazzled, however, the engineer completely different than what she expected.
"Well, because I got Optimus' message and-"
"Oh, no, sorry," Kay quickly interrupted, "I mean why are you in my room?" Wheeljack blinked twice, looking around the room. His eyes landed on the duffel bag, widening quickly in surprise.
"Oh, my bad, I didn't see that there," he stated. "I just come here whenever Ratchet's fixing me up so I don't have to listen to his rants." Kay rose an eyebrow at that, though she was definitely amused.
"You ignore Ratchet during his rants?" she questioned. "Is that safe?"
"Oh, it's fi-" Before he could finish, the holoform burst into a cloud of angry sparks, a few zapping Kay. The young woman blinked twice, brushed at her arms which buzzed with the short sparks, then laughed to herself.
"Told 'im," she stated to KiKi, finally placing the cat's water bowl on the ground.
Kay waltzed into the Med Bay then immediately dodged a wrench, raising an eyebrow towards the mech who had thrown said tool.
"You have soot in your optics or something?" she questioned of Ratchet, nonchalantly returning the wrench via her powers then sauntering up to his leg. The old mech growled lowly, smacking Wheeljack on the helm when the inventor squirmed.
"Why don't you hit her?" Wheeljack demanded with a small frown, itching at a sparking wire. Ratchet swatted the wandering servo away while Kay carefully climbed his leg, keeping out of the medic's way.
"Because she isn't interfering with my work," Ratchet grumbled. "Highly unnecessary work, might I add." Kay carefully rested herself on Ratchet's shoulder, watching him work with a college-refined focus.
"New inventions are absolutely necessary!" Wheeljack countered, avidly moving his arms to emphasize his point. Ratchet growled again, ready to pull out some restraining tape or something similar while less kind, when Kay rapidly activated her powers and simply but firmly locked Wheeljack's arms in place. Ratchet muttered a thanks while Wheeljack grew incredibly confused incredibly quickly.
"What is going on?" he demanded. "I thought you said humans weren't as advanced as us," he stated, looking around for some type of projector for what he assumed was solid holo projection technology. Instead, Kay gave a wave and a bright smile, her eyes casting a golden glow on the metal of Ratchet's form beside her. Wheeljack simply froze, staring unblinkingly at Kay for a long time. Kay's smile slowly drooped along with her hand, true worry filling her.
"Is he okay?" she breathed to Ratchet, afraid of the inventor's reaction to loud noises. Ratchet glanced up then quickly returned to his work.
"Yeah. You don't have anything planned for the next few days, do you?" Kay glanced at Ratchet.
"No, why?" Rather than answering, the older mech stood back, inspected his work, then glanced at Kay. A small smirk hovered over his faceplates, something Kay very much did not trust.
"You can release him now." Kay hesitated, keeping straight eye contact with Ratchet as she carefully released her power's hold over Wheeljack. The smirk finally fully hit Ratchet's face. "He's gonna ask you a lot of questions." Before Kay could voice her confusion, Wheeljack was on his pedes, carefully snatching Kay off of Ratchet's shoulder before sprinting out of the Med Bay and towards the place he'd made his lair. Ratchet laughed to himself.
Bee was truly worried. He hadn't seen Kay, let alone heard from her in the last two days, and every attempt to question other Bots was received with half-hearted deflection and diversion. Not even Ratchet or Alpha was worried. That led the young scout to believe everybot but himself knew where Kay was, and for some reason that made him mad. Or, at least, heavily annoyed.
Bee grumbled lowly to himself as he marched around the side of the base, having decided to talk with Wheeljack, the last Bot on his list. The scout could feel his doorwings twitching roughly, a symptom of the stress and worry that furiously pulsed deep within his spark. He reached the formerly-most abandoned hangar on the island and pushed the door open, pausing for simply a moment to let his optics adjust to the startlingly bright light pouring out from the box.
"Watch out!" He ducked even before he could see, shock flashing through him for a moment as something just behind him exploded and bathed his form in relatively mild heat for how loud the explosion sounded.
"Oh my gosh, Bee, are you okay?" Now the scout's spark froze, his form tensing at the voice that hit his audio receptors. "Bee?" He turned, his optics landing on the object of his intense search for the past day. Her hair was wild, ripping itself uncontrollably from its ponytail and she was still wearing her clothes from two days ago, but she was physically fine, her eyes full of the excitement Bee often saw in Wheeljack's optics after a good inventing session. There was a bit of worry clouding the excitement, but Bee didn't really care. All he was feeling was relief, though that was quickly being replaced with slight annoyance.
~You've been here the whole time?~ he demanded in scout, not even bothering to check radio frequencies for the words he wanted to say. He could feel the annoyance already fading, though, and soon just felt warmth deep in his spark.
"Wait, 'whole time'?" Kay echoed, true confusion in her eyes. "We've only been in here a few hours." Bee paused then began laughing, light at first, then true, gut-busting laughter as he realized she was sincere. "Really, it's only been a few hours, right?" Kay spun towards Wheeljack. "How long has it been?"
"A few vorn," Wheeljack said with a light shrug. "Don't know what Bumblebot's laughing about, there." Kay turned back to her Bot, struggling not to smile as her confusion was being replaced with glowing happiness. Being around Bee did some strange things to her, and she loved it.
~Kay, vorn,~ Bee emphasized in his laughter. Hearing the word in Cybertronian made something click in Kay's mind her eyes widening and jaw dropping.
"Wait, vorn?" After a few more confirming laughs from Bee, Kay suddenly took off, sprinting for her room. "I'm so sorry I forgot to feed you again, KiKi!"