Chapter 3
There were four Autobots in the room. The only one I recognised was Arcee. The others I didn't know. One was tall. Taller than Optimus and me. He held a spear in his hand and had an angry expression on his face. The other two were shorter. All four were staring at me as we came in. Optimus knelt down to the tall Autobot. Uncertain, I followed his lead.
The Autobot gestured for Optimus to stand, and then turned to me.
"You're Clara?" he asked.
"Yes sir." Don't ask me why I said 'sir'. It just felt right.
"Stand up."
I did as I was told, mostly because I hated kneeling down. I tried to ignore the stares of the other Autobots in the room, but it was like their eyes were burning into me. Optimus wasn't looking at me or giving me any hints as to what I should do. He had his head tilted, watching one of the smaller Autobots gesturing to him frantically.
"I am Sentinel Prime. Leader of the Autobots." Yeah, I'd kind of figured that. "You've already met my first lieutenant, Optimus Prime, and Arcee. Also here are my medical officer, Ratchet, and my weapons specialist, Ironhide." Okay, while it was nice to know who was in the room staring at me, this guy was rambling. Problem was, I already had a good guess as to where this was going. "I know your father. He's a good man." Sentinel looked at me. "But this isn't about him."
I blinked. Okay, I was wrong. This wasn't about my father? So this wasn't about the territory, like I'd thought it would be. That territory was the only reason people ever took any interest in me, but this guy wasn't interested in it at all. What did he want with me?
Sentinel was looking at me closely.
"No, this isn't about the territory." He said, "I saw your father quite recently. I know all about your time in Decepticon territory, and why you've turned out the way you have." Where was this going? I didn't really care who my father spoke to. That was his business, not mine. Besides, I'd already met quite a few of them and they weren't the kind of people I was jumping to get to know.
"Have you ever handled a weapon before, Clara?"
"No. There's never been any need."
Sentinel nodded absently.
"Right. Ironhide can help you out there." he peered at me. "We were actually arguing about my decision before you arrived. Ratchet doesn't think it's a very good idea, which I find very annoying."
"Sentinel." Optimus growled. He looked just as frustrated as I felt. "Will you please stop talking in riddles and actually tell us what's going on?"
Sentinel gave him an annoyed look.
"Very well." He turned back to me. "Clara, we're running very low on recruits. We're lucky if we get one every two months at most, and what few recruits we are getting, Optimus scares away." He glared at Optimus.
"What?" Optimus demanded, "They were all fangirls."
"Anyway," Sentinel said loudly, changing the subject, "I think you may have some potential. So, I'm asking you to become an Autobot."
I blinked. This was rather….sudden. I opened my mouth to say something but he held up his hand, cutting me off.
"Don't decide yet. You need to know what you're getting yourself into first. You'll need a teacher, and I think I know just the person for the job." He turned to Optimus, "Remember me asking you if you wanted to be a teacher?"
"Remember me saying 'no'?"
"You didn't say no."
"Not in those words. I said I was never ever ever gonna teach."
Sentinel face-palmed.
"Optimus," he said through his fingers, "Please. Just teach her everything I taught you and you'll be fine. Now, where was I? Oh yes." He turned back to me. "I'll have to have Ironhide help you find an appropriate weapon, of course. You'll be doing all your training with Optimus. He'll be responsible for you." he looked pointedly at Optimus, "He'll teach you the Rules of Conduct and help you with your weapons training. If you have any problems, just go to him. Oh, and, ah….try not to pick up any bad habits."
Sentinel looked around at the other Autobots gathered in the room.
"I think that covers just about everything. Don't decide on anything yet, sleep on it first." He turned to Ironhide, "Could you please show Clara to her room?"
Ironhide nodded and led me out of the room. I was just happy to be away from everybody's stares.
"Why is Ratchet so against me becoming an Autobot?" I asked him.
"You're a Rogue." Ironhide replied, "That's all the reason he needs."
"What do you think?"
"I think we should make decisions based on personality and effort, not the kind of background the candidate comes from. I'm all for you becoming an Autobot so long as you prove that you're 100% loyal and you're willing to put the effort in."
"So why does Sentinel want me to become an Autobot in the first place?"
"Like he said, we have literally no new recruits at the moment. Besides, your father said you might be interested, apparently."
I blinked.
"He did?"
"According to Sentinel, yeah." He looked at me. "So what are you deciding on at the moment?"
"I don't know what I'll think in the morning, but at the moment….while I am thinking that Sentinel is very possibly crazy for even suggesting it, I think I would take him up on his offer if he were to ask me now."
Ironhide nodded, smiling.
"Sentinel's made some crazy decisions in his time. It's up to you whether this becomes one of them or not.
"What did he mean when he told me not to pick up any bad habits?"
Ironhide laughed.
"It's not rare for a student to pick up bad habits from their teacher. Optimus has quite a few bad habits, and Sentinel would rather not have a duplicate."
"What kind of bad habits?"
"Well….most of our drills are at night, because that's be when the Decepticons are most likely to attack, but Optimus has a really annoying habit of sleeping right through the alarm. Roxy and I are always sent to wake him up, but he is literally dead to the world. It may seem funny, and most of the time it is, but Sentinel gets worried. Optimus is one of our best fighters, and there aren't many of us anyway. If it was a real attack, and he did that, we'd be doomed." He smiled. "He also breaks a lot of rules. Sentinel often complains that if he had a penny for every time he's had to break Optimus out of jail, we'd all be rich. And that's not even counting the number of times Optimus has been thrown in jail and broke out by himself, which is probably twice as much." He looked at me, "Sentinel just doesn't want you going the same way."
I nodded understandingly. Ironhide looked me up and down.
"You don't really trust any of us." He commented.
"I don't know any of you."
"So what do you do, if you're not a fighter?"
"I'm a mechanic."
Ironhide looked at me with a new interest.
"You make much?"
"Yeah. But I mostly fix things. Some of the people in my village have a habit of breaking weapons in very imaginative ways."
Ironhide rolled his eyes.
"Tell me about it. Are you any good?"
"I guess so. I get a lot of customers, so that must count for something."
Ironhide nodded and we walked in comfortable silence until we reached a small room. Ironhide flicked the light on. This room was tiny. There were two single beds shoved in, taking up all the space. They were pushed right against all four walls and each other, leaving hardly enough space to breathe, let alone move around. I wasn't claustrophobic, so the confined space wasn't what bothered me. It was the mountain of junk piled up on the left hand bed. A mountain of guns and nuts and bolts, and even a half finished sword. Ironhide looked at it and gave me a sheepish look.
"Um. Yeah. Optimus is used to sleeping on his own." he thought for a moment. "Just put it all on his bed. He can worry about where to put it."
I nodded and he helped me move everything. He kept looking at me while we worked, like he was sizing me up.
"So what kind of weapon would you feel most comfortable with?" he asked me.
"I don't know." I admitted.
"I'll tell Optimus to take you up to my workshop when he's done training you tomorrow. I can test you on different weapons; see which one's will work for you. He'll be able to help you train with it after he's done with the Rules of Conduct."
I nodded. I was beginning to like Ironhide. It was easier to get on with somebody you had a lot in common with.
"Well, at least as his student you'll be safe." Ironhide was saying.
"What do you mean?"
Ironhide thought for a moment, as if deciding how best to say it.
"Optimus is well known for being a bit of a….ladies man. He doesn't really care about the people he hurts and, well, I saw the way you were looking at him. But I don't really have to warn him since, if you agree to this, you're his student. It's something else for you to think about. If you agree to this, you're forbidden from having any kind of relationship with Optimus or any student that you take on."
I nodded. I understood what he was getting at. It was the same for Rogues. I wasn't sure about Decepticons, who didn't seem capable of getting into relationships of any kind anyway.
We managed to shift Optimus' mountain of junk onto his bed, and Ironhide left. I didn't think I would be able to get to sleep at all that night, after everything that had happened to me that day, but I fell asleep almost immediately.