Chapter 7

First lessons in Combat

5 weeks had passed since Maria arrived. Through that time, Maria would become the center of attention from time to time, usually when ever she and Hot Shot and Sideswipe were playing around, making a big scene for everyone to see. Other times it would be when she would hang out with the mini-cons and the human kids, usually playing hide-and-seek, or a game of tag. It seemed that Maria brought some excitement and some sort of tranquility to the base. And in truth, it wasn't that bad at all.

But one thing hadn't changed. Ever since their first conversation together, Optimus Prime suddenly kept himself distant from Maria. Maria was a bit concerned. All she wanted to do was to be his friend, but now he was brushing her away again. What was she going to do? She figured that maybe she could get his attention by proving that she can be like the rest of the Autobots at the base. Meaning, going into the workout room and doing some exercises, stretching, and even some robotic yoga. It didn't work. Feeling bad for her failed attempts, Maria would often find things to help calm her down, like listening to the radio, or talking to the human kids and mini-cons, or even the other Autobots.

One day, Hoist was busy practicing his aim in the weapons room when a blast of music sounded through the entrance, making Hoist flinch and miss the practice target. Cursing to himself he left the room and came into the room to where the music was coming from. Inside as usual, was Maria, with Spark Plug, Jolt, High Wire, Sureshock, and Grindor, and they were dancing about, giggling wildly, to the energetic song that was playing on the radio.

"You could have a steam train

If you just lay down your tracks."

"You could have an aeroplane flying

If you bring your blue sky back."

"All you do is call me

I'll be anything you need."

"You could have big dipper

Going up and down, all around

the bends."

"You could have a bumper car,

bumping. This amusement never

ends."

"I want to be

your Sledgehammer

Why don't you call me.

Oh let me be

your Sledgehammer

This will be my testimony."

Stepping in Hoist tried to yell, but his voice was drowned out by the wild, loud, exciting music. Realizing his words weren't going to help, he made his way to the outlet to where the radio was plugged in and pulled the plug, causing all the dancers to stop and freeze. Maria spun around and saw who the intruder was and scowled in annoyance.

"We were almost to the best part of the song. Why did you do that?" She asked.

"Couldn't you and the mini-cons listen to the 'best part' a little quieter? It's keeping me from practicing my shooting skills." Hoist answered, twirling the cord around in his hand.

"Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't know it was too loud, but that music just gets to me. Once it's on, I just want to wrap myself into it." Maria apologized.

"I know, kiddo. Just remember that some of us have work to do." Hoist spoke, but before he could leave he heard the youngling giggle.

"Like you working on your bad shooting skills?" Maria giggled mischievously.

Seeing that she was teasing him, Hoist smirked evilly, which Maria caught a glimpse of.

"Why you little rascal. Come here, you."

Maria shrieked and ran, but didn't get far. Hoist shot out his grapple hook, fashioned it into a lasso and threw it to his target. Tied up and utterly helpless, Maria struggled to get herself free. She was soon being reeled in and was scooped up into Hoist arms, and with a big smile Hoist started giving Maria a hard, playful noogie.

"Ha-ha-ha-ha. Stop it. You're doing it too hard." Maria giggled.

Hoist just shook his head and laughed as continued his assault. Just then Scavenger came into the room and interrupted. "Will you to keep it down. You're keeping me from doing work."

Hearing this, Hoist and Maria just laughed.

Just then the alarms sounded, and soon all the Autobots, mini-cons, and youngling came into the control room. Optimus Prime and Red Alert stood looking at the screen.

"It appears to be a mini-con sighting. Laser Beak should have to locations loaded up soon." Red Alert told his comander. In a few moments the location was depicted. "It says the location of the mini-con is somewhere in an abandoned factory in Ohio. No humans are around, but the decepticons will be there soon."

"Right. Autobots, report to the warp bay and await my orders. Scavenger, Blur, and Hoist, I want the three of you to watch Maria while we are gone." Optimus ordered.

"How come I can't come?" Maria asked.

"It's too dangerous, especially for a bot of your age." Blur said. This remark got Maria annoyed.

"I can handle danger." She protested, causing some of the Autobots to laugh quietly.

"A little word of advice. Act your age, and maybe we might consider taking out into battle." Blur said sarcastically.

"That's enough, Blur. We can't risk her safety. She is not allowed to be outside of our base." Prime said. "Autobots, roll out."

Watching the assigned bots leave the control room, Maria became more eager to join them, but was held back by a strong hand that was firmly placed on her shoulder plate. Despite being held back, Maria still wondered what it would be like outside the base. Since she was never allowed outside, she wanted to be out in the open world more than ever.

Scavenger turned to head into the work out room, not even noticing that he was being followed. It was until he came into the room that he heard Mara's voice from behind.

"Hey, Scavenger. Could you teach me how to fight?" She asked.

"Now what makes you think I would do that?" Scavenger said, crossing his huge black arms. Maria told him that since she wanted to be more useful, she figured that it wouldn't hurt to learn a few moves if she were to fight Deceptcons in the future. Scavenger only chuckled.

"A squirt like you, out there beating Decepticons until they're nothing but scrap? You wouldn't last a micro second." he reached out and grabbed hold of a weight and lifted it as if was light as a feather. "You couldn't even lift this thing."

"I can, too." Maria protested and she went over to a second weight, and failed to lift it up. She was grunting and heaving as hard as she could, but nothing happened. The weight didn't even budge. Seeing the failure, Scaveger only shook his head. "See, like I said. You won't last that long with that much muscle cables you got." He said mischievously He was obviously enjoying Maria's attempt to show her strength.

Maria however was starting to shake in frustration.

"Yes.. I.. Can." Maria shouted, and without thinking she started a series of punches and kicks, hitting Scavengers green stabilizing servos. Looking down at the youngling, the mech just shook his head yet again, with a big grin.

"Tsk, Tsk, Tsk. Pitiful." He then reached down and grasped the youngling in both hands, keeping her from punching him, as he raised her to his face.

"If you want to fight, you got to learn how an Autobot actually fights, not just in random moves, like what you were doing." He grinned as he place Maria down on her aft. Maria looked up and saw Scavenger take a battle stance.

"Alright, attack me." Scavenger ordered.

Waisting no time, Maria ran forward with a punch but her opponent slid to the right and chuckled. Watching the younglings stance, Scavenger was a little confused. She was stiff all over. She kept her elbows close to her sides and when she punched it was like a 'rock'em sock'em robot' move. And her stabilizing servos only moved an inch or two.

"Okay, now look here. You got to keep your form loose. Don't keep it stiff. When you're loose, you can execute more moves as you move about. Now start to loosen up a bit." Scavenger corrected. As he did so, he made a quick punching movement, and just as he expected, Maria loosened her body and quickly moved to the side. "That's it. If you keep yourself loose, you won't get hit."

Feeling good about the complement, Maria went to punch again but the amount of force she had in her punch sent her spinning around. Scavenger couldn't help but laugh. "Don't punch that hard, or else you'll become a 'Autobot tornado'."

Hearing the commotion, Hoist and Blur peeked in to see what was going on. What they saw was enough to make them laugh to themselves. There was Scavenger, tough, hard headed, and down right serious almost to everyone who knew him, was playfully teaching a femme how to fight. This left Blur to think out loud.

"And to think he was serious most of the time." He said, leaning against the entrance wall.

"Yeah, and he usually hates being around others who are lazy most of the time."

"Are you saying the kid's is lazy, and not qualified to be one of us?" Blur asked.

"Nah, She's got spunk. Just look at her. With motivation like that, she can be a great fighter in no time." Hoist said, waving a hand in defence.

Getting back to the quarrel, Scavenger and Maria were moving about and dodging each others attacks. "Keep it up, kid. You getting it." Scavenger laughed as Maria tried to jump up at punch his face plate. "Come on, give me what you got." He encouraged. With that being said, the youngling jumped up again and punched, but missed.

"Ha-ha-ha. She's a dandy." Scavenger chuckled as he slapped Maria's aft, sending her cart-wheeling to Hoist, who caught her just in time.

"Take it easy with that slap of yours, Iron Fists." Hoist sternly warned.

"It wasn't that hard. If it was she would not be able to figure out if her hands were where her pads should be, or if her pads were where her hands should be." Scavenger stated.

Shaking her head to stop the dizziness, Maria replied, "Don't worry. I'm alright." She got herself up without any help and started back to Scavenger. "And I'm ready for round 2." She smiled, taking her own fighting stance.

"Atta girl. Now let's try again. Remember to keep circling around me so that you can find a weakness." Scavenger reminded. Once again, the two combatants began their melee battle.

Just then, as Scavenger leaned in to remind Maria of her posture, Maria sucker punched Scavenger straight in the nose plate. The green and black mech was sent on his aft, holding his nose plate, groaning in agony. Blur and Hoist gasped at what happened, and were afraid for Maria's safety. Maria braced herself in case she was going to be yelled at and punished.

slowly lowering his hands, Scavenger glared at the child, but then, to everybody's shock, started laughing.

"Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha. You're not bad kid." He smiled, giving Maria a soft punch to her side, causing her to snigger.

"I'm sorry I hit your nose plate." She apologized.

"Don't even bother, Maria. Scavenger's been through worse than that. He'll make it." Hoist joked. Everyone was soon laughing at what happened, especially Maria. She was happy to see that she had the qualities of a good fighter. She only hoped that Optimus would see this.

…

…

…

…

Later that day, after the mission to retrieve the mini-con, everything around the base were somewhat back to normal. Mostly due to hearing about how Scavenger got beaten up by a youngling, partially humiliating him. Jetfire soon brought the subject to Prime.

"The kid really has a lot of potential, when Blur me what had happened. Maybe when she's fully upgraded to an adult, she can..." But before he could finish, Optimus glared at his second in command.

"Absolutely not. I don't want her to get any ideas in the subject of putting herself in the line of battle just yet." Optimus informed.

"But Prime, don't you think this is something she is doing in order to get your attention? The least you can do is congratulate her on that alone." Jetfire argued. But Prime just ignored him and left. "What has crawled up his tailpipe? Maria is just proving herself to be a great fighter. Isn't that enough to get you to like her?" Jetfire thought to himself.

(Loved the fight scene with Maria and Scavenger? I kinda got that from the Jungle Book where Ballo teaches Mowgli how to fight like a bear; great classic Disney movie by the way. I do not own "Sledgehammer" by Peter Gabriel. )