Disclaimer: I OWN NOTHING! The Transformers are the sole property of Hasbro, and I'm merely a bored person who has nothing better to do with my time…
Note: NO FLAMES PLEASE! I'm always open to constructive criticism/beta offers. But being rude is seriously not cool. If you think my fic is THAT bad, then just stop reading it.
Summary: With the recent wave of crime sweeping Detroit, the Autobots are unable to keep a close optic on Sari. So when a local college student advertises to babysit, they immediately jump at the offer. Little do they know the chaos that will ensue...
Enigma
Previously:
The two mechs exchanged amused glances as Kayla continued to rave, her excitement growing with each passing second.
Little did they realize that this would begin a world of Pit for a fellow Autobot, as they unsuspectingly continued to smile…
Time seemed to fly by quickly, and it was agreed upon by Optimus and Kayla that it would be best if she started watching Sari fresh in the morning, when she was rested, and had her full attention to devote to the girl.
"Alright guys," she said with a barely-stifled yawn, one hand covering her mouth while the other scooped up her bag and car keys. "I'll see you bright and early tomorrow morning." After a thought, she inquired, "You still have my phone number? Just in case…"
Optimus moved to stand beside her, placing his enormous fingertips on her back in reassurance. "Yes, we have a method to contact you."
She yawned again, this time, too exhausted to bother concealing it. "'Kay." With the push of a button on the keyless entry, her car alarm disarmed itself with a tiny beep beep, and she opened the passenger side door, depositing her backpack in the seat before closing the door, and walking around to the driver's side. "G'night Optimus, Bulkhead. Pleasant dreams!"
Optimus smiled as she opened the driver's side door. "Goodnight, Kayla. We hope you have pleasant dreams as well."
Kayla waved wearily at the two of them before swinging into the driver's seat, closing the door, and starting the engine; her car, a little black hybrid, pulled out from in front of the base, and began to disappear into the darkness of the city until the tail lights were no longer visible in the inky blackness of the enormous buildings looming up ahead.
After a moment of silence, once Kayla's car had vanished from their line of vision, Bulkhead turned to his leader. "You think we did the right thing, Prime? Hiring a babysitter for Sari?"
The Autobot leader thought for a moment, considering all aspects of the situation with his chin in his hand, and carefully explained, "I think we owe it to both Sari and her father. It's been months since his disappearance, and I think a tremendous load would be lifted from his shoulders if he knew that his daughter was being cared for in his absence."
"Yeah, you're probably right." The larger bot processed what Prime had said before continuing, "I wonder what Sari'll do."
"Sari's a big girl," said Optimus with a small smile. "I'm sure she'll understand our reasoning."
"Yeah," agreed Bulkhead as they turned to head back inside the base. "She'll be fine."
Without another word on the subject, the two Autobots headed indoors, completely confident in both Sari's maturity and Kayla's capabilities as a babysitter.
All that was left was to introduce them.
Right on time, at six 'o clock that morning, the familiar sound of an approaching car alerted Optimus to the arrival of his new employee. Anticipating her entrance, he pushed one of the numerous buttons on Teletraan's console, automatically opening the large hangar door for easier access. Turning his attention back to the monitor, he assumed that she'd find her own way in, buying him a few more precious moments of searching for either a trace leading to the Decepticon base, or an Allspark fragment.
"Goooood morning, Optimus!"
The poor mech nearly leaped out of his chassis at the sudden noise, but smiled kindly at the harmless sing-song tone of her voice; she'd come prepared, her backpack slung lazily over one shoulder, and meandered her way over to him as she took in her surroundings.
"It looks different during the daytime," she commented as she set down her bag, and sat herself in Sari's beanbag chair. "A lot lighter."
The Autobot leader couldn't think of a response off the top of his processor, and chose to progress through the conversation with a simple question. "How are you, Kayla?"
"Pretty good," she took a moment to fan herself. "But slightly hot." Her hands reached down to the hem of her school sweatshirt, crossing her arms as she did so; without warning, she froze, and turned to Optimus with questioning eyes. "You don't mind, do you?"
"Not at all." He averted his optics as she removed her outermost garment, leaving her in her jeans, sneakers, and a plain black t-shirt, stretched tight across her small form from the many washes it'd no doubt undergone. Feeling sheepish, he added, "The heat was supposed to be for your comfort. Would you like me to turn it down?"
"Just a tad," she laughed, folding her sweatshirt before shoving it unceremoniously into her bag. "But not too much; I get cold very easily."
As he turned down the temperature controls, he couldn't hold back a bit of laughter at how outrageous her statement was. "Then what are you doing here in Detroit? This city doesn't have the kindest of winters."
Pulling out a pad of paper and a pen, Kayla scribbled something down before turning her attention back to him. "Trust me, it won't be a permanent thing. I'm only here because the Michigan State University of Detroit has one of the best engineering programs in the country; my home is actually in Southern California, and I'll be returning there as soon as I receive my Master's degree."
After digesting all the information she'd just provided him, he asked another question. "Engineering? I thought you were writing a 'psychology' paper."
"I am," she rose from her seat and adjusted her position before sitting once again. "Abnormal Psychology was the last of a series of 'elective courses' I needed to take. Everything else has all been accounted for, except for my frickin' Differential Equations class." A growl emanating her frustration permeated the calm atmosphere as she continued, "That class'll be the death of me! I'm trying to keep up my 4.5 grade point average, but that instructor always has some new curve ball to throw at me!"
Optimus turned, and pulled up a few things on Teletraan's browser in an attempt to make heads or tails of what she'd just said. "So…I assume that Differential Equations is a mathematics course, and that a 'grade point average' is how well you're scoring in your classes, a 4.5 being considered one of the highest possible results."
"Pretty much," she agreed, showing him her textbook. "I'm supposed to be in the running for valedictorian, but I'm not sure anymore now that I got my last DifEqs exam back, and I got a B, for cryin' out loud!" The Autobot leader found the offending test being shoved toward him, and only watched as her exasperation grew.
"Well…" he pondered for a few minutes before continuing. "This course looks very difficult. You seem like an intelligent person, but maybe math isn't your strongest point in your education."
The only response was a frustrated sigh, to which he could add nothing. "Don't worry about it…" she waved a hand airily, pulling on her beanie to further cover her head. "I'll get everything sorted out eventually." After pulling on her errant hat for a third time, she finally screamed in agitation, ripped it off, and flung it across the room. "Stupid hat…" she grumbled darkly, glaring at the offending beanie with narrowed eyes.
But Optimus didn't follow her gaze; he was far too shocked by her drastic haircut to even spare a glance at the poor hat, which Kayla was now collecting. Her hair was…short, really short. It was an average medium-brown color, not uncommon to see out on the street, and couldn't have been longer than an inch and a half, the center section down the center of her head spiked up into what Sari had once called a 'fauxhawk'. The beanie left her ears exposed as well; he noticed that they were pierced multiple times, four on the left, three and a silver bar on the right, which looked to be extremely uncomfortable. She finally looked toward him again, revealing yet another feature of hers that he failed to notice: she even had her right eyebrow pierced, a tiny curved barbell passing beneath her skin. The very thought of it made him shudder, and he looked away as she fiddled with it while speaking.
"What?" she questioned curiously, obviously not bothered by his reaction. "Never seen a human with piercings before?"
"No…not really." He tried to ignore the discomfort plaguing his audio receptors, pushing the images of having them pierced with a metal rod out of his processor.
"Heeeey! Look who's up!" Kayla's attention had drifted away from the Autobot leader and shifted toward Sari, who was sleepily making her way into the living room of the base, still clad in her pajamas. "G'morning, Sleeping Beauty!"
Her zombie-like walk immediately halted; she was now fully alert in this stranger's presence, and shot a questioning look at Optimus. "Uh…who's she?"
"This is your new babysitter," he gestured to the human with an open hand, introducing the two of them. "Her name is Kayla, and she'll be around to keep you company while we're out on patrol."
"What?!" Apparently, she wasn't going to take this as well as he'd hoped. "You mean she's gonna treat me like a little kid 24/7?"
"No, I'm not." Kayla intervened, holding up a hand to halt Sari's rant. "I'm just here to look out for you." The young girl still looked suspicious, her brow furrowed and her lips pursed tight. "Think of it this way: Now, you've got someone to do all sorts of crazy stuff with!" The older girl jabbed her thumb into her chest, gesturing to herself. "I'm not some stick in the mud here to ruin your fun!"After a moment of glancing around, she noticed a game console sitting in front of the television. "Wanna play some video games?"
"Cool!" Sari was immediately enthusiastic about the proposition, seeing as how Bumblebee wouldn't be up for several hours, and rushed to turn on the game system as her caretaker walked back over to Optimus.
"See?" she questioned, a somewhat smug expression teasing at her facial features. "I've got everything perfectly under control."
He nodded in agreement. "So it seems." A soft sigh cycled through his air intakes as he checked the time on his internal time keeper. "Ratchet's coming back from his patrol any klik now, which means it's time for me to head out." Optimus turned back to Kayla, a slight bit of apprehension flickering in his optics. "Just try to keep things down a bit; with our frequent shifts, we've always got a couple mechs in stasis…"
"Sure thing!" she waved off his worries with a careless hand, obviously not needing further instruction before his departure. "Don't worry, we won't burn the base down."
Still slightly wary, especially from that last remark, the Autobot leader cast one last reluctant gaze about the room, and turned to leave, still slightly unsure about whether or not what he was doing was right. "And you're sure that you two will be fine?"
"Trust me."
He departed without another word, not realizing that he'd set the board, and that the pieces were beginning to move.
Prowl's latest night shift had been exhausting; he'd managed to both thwart the Angry Archer and temporarily ward off Lockdown, though the second of the two tasks exhausted him more. After returning back to the base in the early hours of the morning, he'd been vaguely aware of Prime moving about on the lower level, and finally, the mechanical noise of the large hangar door opening before he'd drifted off into a relatively peaceful stasis. It was a pleasant, dreamless rest, with nothing barring the simple, pure recharge that he needed before his shift began again tonight.
However, several hours into his much-needed sleep, something downstairs faintly tickled the back of his processor.
"Oh, OH, OH! I've got you now!"
"No way, man! You're all mine!"
This minor noise wasn't enough to jar him from recharge, and pinning it as a figment of his nearly non-existent imagination, he grunted, rolled over, and fell deep into stasis once again, his mind going blissfully and completely blank as he rested.
For a while, it seemed as though he might actually finish a complete recharge cycle for the first time in Primus knew how long, but –of course– it would never come to pass. He distantly heard another bout of yelling drift upstairs, which brought him to the very barrier between stasis and wakefulness.
"Yes! Yes! Go, go, go!"
"Feel the wrath of my ultimate weapons!"
Ignoring the sounds from downstairs yet again, Prowl rolled over, but had to concentrate hard on stasis before he felt himself begin to rest again. However, the peace didn't last longer than a few seconds before-
"YES! YES! YEEEEES! Booya! Told you I'd win! TOLD YOU! TOLD YOU! TOLD YOU!"
That was it. As a sane mech, he knew he could take no more of this racket, and onlined his optics, rubbing his visor in frustration as he pounded down the stairs to investigate the source of his restlessness. What he found didn't completely surprise him: Sari was playing video games again, which always seemed to stir up a ruckus in the base. This time, however, it wasn't with Bumblebee, as it normally was.
Another human was sitting beside Sari, and both were entirely absorbed in their video game. He assumed the newcomer to be male, judging by their exceptionally short haircut, and decided that rather speak with a stranger, he'd talk to his more familiar human companion.
Noticing that both were wearing headphones, he gently pulled up the panel covering Sari's right ear and asked quite bluntly, "Do you mind? Some of us are trying to sleep in here." Upon seeing the grouchy look his facial features had adopted, she laughed.
Apparently, the stranger didn't have the volume in their headphones raised as much as he first assumed. "Yeah…sorry. We were being kinda loud." Prowl felt confused, and mentally slapped himself when he realized that the guest was female. "I'm Kayla, by the way," she introduced herself with a smile, obviously not bothered by his sour mood. "I'll be watching over Sari now to give you guys a break."
"Prowl." As always, he spoke as little as possible, determined not to get caught up in conversation when he could be recharging. "Now that this little problem has been resolved, I'm going to resume my stasis. Goodbye Sari, Kayla."
He acknowledged them both with brief nods before heading back upstairs for more rest, and on the way up, he couldn't help but overhear the elder of the two girls giggle, "You know, he was actually pretty cute…"
Ugh, human flirting is so confusing.
He stole a second glance at the girls, only to see that Kayla had a set of car keys in hand, and that the two of them were headed outside to her car; the two of them looked eager to get outside the dreary confines of the base, and he dismissed their urgency without another thought as he continued down the hallway to his private quarters. Downstairs, he could hear Sari complementing her guardian's hair and odd piercings, calling them 'cool'…
She seemed a bit…off to me. Perhaps traits like hers are the style these days. But who knows; fads here on Earth change more suddenly than the weather.
The distant roar of a car engine could be heard outside the base, and he knew they'd already left. So, thinking nothing more of it, he settled back down in his quarters and offlined his optics, falling back into recharge now that peace and quiet reigned once again.
Little did he know that this was only the beginning of his torture.
Author's Note: Sorry I didn't update the first time; I did post a new chapter, but I absolutely hated it. I didn't want to post utter crap, so to those of you who I might've deceived, I apologize. I hope you guys enjoyed this chappie!