[ti]Flashback[/ti]The World's Gonna Know Your Name [ Closed | Kup ]

[Hot Rod]

Location: The Academy
Timeline: Pre-War

Megatron is on the rise, gathering his brigade. After bearing witness to the malicious actions of the former Gladiator upon a young scout, Hot Rod has decided that Megatron is no different than Zeta Prime, and to stop a repeat of history the only thing to do is to join with the Autobots in hopes of ending the Decepticon tyranny...

Only he has more to learn than he thought...

---

     Sitting. Waiting. Time passing. More time passing. More waiting.

     Where was this mech? Was this some joke? Was this part of the punishment he was being given?The day was going to end the same way it started, and it gave him time to do that reflecting thing that most did when there was just nothing else to do.

     Detention. That was the most ridiculous thing he had ever HEARD of. The Administration was acting as if no one had ever skipped one class in order to sneak through the ventiliation shafts to another classroom in an attempt to steal the answers to the test later on in the cycle. Seriously, Hot Rod knew that others had to have done it, and everyone was blowing a gasket over it. Worse thing about it wasn't even that Hot Rod had gotten caught, but that he had been given a 0 on the test. He hadn't even been given a chance to take it! He'd been caught before he had seen the answers so it shouldn't have even mattered. The Administrator had said something about it being on 'principal'- whatever that meant. Honestly, they should have been thanking him since he had to pretty much clean out those ducts before he could safely pass through. They would probably get some decent air current in this place now. 

     But instead of getting a slap on the servo for the skipping class and a thanks for making the Academy a cooler place where no one would overheat anymore, he had to sit through an eternity of complaining and going over rules and being issued warnings. He'd heard something about 'this being the last straw' and 'throwing the datapad at him' should he do anything like this again. He had been sent out in the hall while the entire group of headmasters got together to discuss whatever they wanted to about him. When they had called him back? Good news and bad news.

     Good news: He wasn't being kicked out.

     Bad news: He needed to be assigned to someone who would break him of his bad habits before he could return to normal class and be a functioning individual who could contribute.

     He had a private instructor who would decide if he was worth keeping around or if there really was no hope for him. All his information had been sent to the 'tutor' and Hot Rod had been dismissed from the office without an ability to protest or ask any questions.

     So now here he was, sitting around in this mech's office waiting for him to arrive. Hot Rod was pretty sure that by this point the chair had a permanent indentation of his rear ingrained into the padding. He didn't know who it was or what they were all about. Would it be a hard aft? Would it be someone who would already pass judgement on him before giving him a chance? Know he would be doomed to fail before the first day? Hot Rod would just have to wait and see, but waiting was all he was doing.  

     A heavy vent. He'd give it a couple more brief kliks, then he'd see himself out and explain things later.

[Deleted]

Having read over the young mech's file that had been handed to him by the Dean of the Academy, and even though the old warrior had read the younger mech's troubled file he'd also read between the lines. The younger mech, by the name of Hot Rod, had been a troublesome one. He'd found himself in one detention room after another, or had nearly caused his previous Instructors to pull out their servos just to take that pain over after to train Hot Rod. The younger mech's case had crossed the Old Warrior's desk, not that he'd argued. He'd rarely argued when the promise of shaping up young punks to cleaning out their turbochargers. He'd gained an odd reputation among the Academy along with everywhere else of taken the hard cases, and for telling stories. That last part he had to admit had been borne from his propensity for cataloging each of his experiences through his long operational life, and in forming them together to have an aesop for those that wanted to listen or those that had no other choice.

Where other Instructors had made it a point to learn every little detail of their Charges, and would feed into that in the vain hopes that the mechs on the receiving end would either learn something or figure out how abysmally they'd failed. The Old Warrior hadn't been that kind of Instructor, though he had believed that even the hard luck cases had the potential of being greater if only by proving to themselves they'd been able to achieve it. Through his experience and observations, if you forced a mech or a femme to succeed or to prove to others they'd held great potential those mechs and femmes often came to resent those that only wished to help. A fine example of that, he'd mused inwardly, had to be Sentinel Prime. Rather than having taught that mech that kindness or even understanding, Sentinel Prime had turned a rather lively world full of potential into a stagnant kind of thing leading Kup to have questioned whether training the young mech had been his biggest mistake.

Rounding the corner in the corridor, the Old Warrior's thoughts went back to Hot Rod's file and how he'd be able to at least relate to the lad. Kup hadn't been able to admit it in early cycles when he'd been far younger that he'd been a hard luck case if not with similar circumstances as Hot Rod, and that through his own trials and achievements spurred on by some hard worn Drill Instructors had in the end caused him to realize he'd been more than the nuts and bolts of his frame.

“You're waiting for someone?” Kup asked, having stepped through the open hatch to the detention room. He'd decided to have left the lad's file with the PaDD it had been included on in his apartment, since he believed or rather expected the lad as with many of the hard luck cases to have either denied it's existence or checked him for it.

[Hot Rod]

     This was taking way longer than he felt it should have. Perhaps the instructor had fallen under the same influence as the other ones and had opted out of taking him on as his charge? Hot Rod wouldn't have been surprised, to be honest. Everyone else had given up, and this last one was it. Now that Hot Rod figured he wasn't coming? It was over. He was done. That was the last chance and it had been blown before it had even gotten started. Hot Rod had been tempted to at least given this one the ol' academy trial chance, since he had known that was it, but apparently Hot Rod had made more of a reputation for himself than he had originally thought and that chance was no longer on the table.

     Scrap.Oh well. 

     Hot Rod started to get up from the chair.

     “You're waiting for someone?”

     That voice. He hadn't heard it before, but there was something about that tone that hinted that it wasn't just some fellow schoolmate coming around to give him trouble or poke fun of 'the loser being kicked out'. When he turned around just to see who it was? That was a far different story.

     Oh, scrap on rebar.

     The old mech standing before him was not one that had gone unnoticed by anyone. If Hot Rod was worried about his own reputation? This mech certainly had one of his own that preceded him far greater than Hot Rod would have been able to even imagine for himself. Kup, the old fool with the stories that could go on and on for cycles. He was a really good instructor, from what he had heard, but very few wanted to do more than learn from him. The moment that the talking started? Patience was over. He'd heard that even Optimus Prime himself wouldn't have been able to sit through an entire story from this old fool!

     ... was this mech his new instructor?

     "Uh-g..." Hot Rod coughed a bit to clear his vocoder and tried that again. "I... I dunno. I was told to report here and wait for some teacher to show up but they didn't tell me the designation. Though I guess since we're meetin' up in the same room and I doubt that they're setting us up for a surprise party? I'm definitely leaning towards... yeah. Pretty sure that I'm supposed to be waiting for you." Hot Rod was split between disappointed and...

     Correction on that sentence. No, he was pretty disappointed. Highly disappointed.

     Hot Rod stood up and held out a servo towards the older mech, but pulled it back before it could be taken as a handshake and crossed his arms instead in his typical impatient stance. "Hot Rod is the designation, though I guess you probably was already told all the stories about me so the introduction isn't needed."

[Deleted]

“You were told to report here? I wonder why they would tell you to report here and not somewhere else, although one place is as good as another right?” Kup asked.

“A pleasure, Hot Rod. You're right. I did know your designation, but I wanted to hear it from the mech himself. It makes introductions that much easier, and I'm sure you already know mine. I've never stood on pomp and ceremony. I appreciate the gesture, but you didn't have to stand to greet me. Please, take a seat,” the Old Warrior said, wondering why the Dean had such a perverse pleasure in sending him to torment younger mechs and femmes. While Kup had enjoyed telling his stories to younger mechs and femmes while instilling in them the same kind -- almost the same kind of training he'd undergone cycles earlier, he'd known all too well on occasion the younger Cybertronians hadn't exactly appreciated his efforts or his presence.

“I'll save the details since I'm sure you know the reasons why you're here. It'll save us both the effort. I could ask what you think you've done wrong, but I'm sure if we went into that we'd be here for cycles. Tell me, what do you think of this place? The Academy? I want to know why you decided to fill out an application, and what you plan on or had thought about achieving,” Kup said, managing to get past the younger mech. Taking a seat on the edge of a nearby desk, he'd been glad that at least the current faculty in the Academy hadn't seen to replacing all of the desks from his time or at least he'd thought he'd remembered the desks from his own stint in the Academy. Or, had it been an instance where it happened to another mech and he'd simply archived it wrong in his own internal archives?

"I'd offer a Cy-Gar, but the current faculty doesn't like it when a mech smokes in their building. It's something to do with some newfangled regulation their concerned with about keeping younger mechs from developing bad habits," he'd say, not in the least convinced that the new regulation had actually improved things. Taking out a Cy-Gar from one of his belt pouches, he'd considered lighting it if only for a nano-klik. While he had wanted to have lit it, he'd avoided it more from how he hadn't wanted to have violated some regulation while he'd been told he'd had to set an example and had resigned to only placing the Cy-Gar so it hung against the corners of his mouth.

[Hot Rod]

     Hot Rod frowned some as he listened to what the mech had to say. He did have a thing about going on and on, that was for sure. When the mech sat down on the edge of the table and fumbled around with the Cy-gar, Hot Rod flopped back in the chair and stretched his legs out to the point where he was slumped so far down in the chair that he was borderline falling out of it. He pressed his pedes against the desk to help steady himself so he didn't actually end up on the floor and stared at them. 

     "It's not like I care either way if ya do or don't," Hot Rod finally said once the old mech was finished talking. "Smoke that, that is. Not like I'm gonna go runnin' off and tattle. The less time I spend in the administration's office, the better. For the sake of both our sanity's." He sort of figured Kup would start smoking his Cy-gar now that Hot Rod had told him it was fine, but he didn't really know why he opted to not do so just for his sake. Not like he was going to be driven further into the dark side just because of that.

     Idly he reached up and stuck his index digit against his audio and rubbed it momentarily before then pulling it away and looking at his digit like there was something on it. He flicked the imaginary... whatever... away and crossed his arms over his chassis as he just slouched away. 

     "The Academy is awful. The staff sucks. The students are annoying. It's like everyone has this bubble of 'I'm so much better than you' and they put on this act to show off just how much more perfect and awesome they are to someone else."

     There was a scoff from the youth and he looked at Kup from the corners of his bright blue optics. "I came here cause I saw Megatron scrap an Autobot scout's vocoder... can only say it looked like it was more for show and sport than anything else. Figured that the only way to guarantee that Megatron is stopped from killing everything on Cybertron is to fight back and... well... the Autobots are kinda the only option. I can't run a one-mech army."

[Deleted]

“I'd go ahead and smoke this, with your permission. I thank you for you that, except I can't. It's not that I don't want to. It's that I can't,” the Old Warrior said.  “I'm on a short list. A very short list. If I break one of the regulations here, I'll probably be melted down. No one knows where to file me in the Caste System which was a mistake, if you ask me. When the System was proposed, I spoke out. I was opposed to it. A bot can't be simply filed away for the sake of some stylis-pusher's convenience,”

“Most mechs your age tend to flat out deny me the pleasure of a nice Cy-Gar,” he'd say, realizing he'd like the younger mech sitting at the mech's own desk.

“The Academy's awful? You couldn't be closer to the truth about that. It's a place where our society sweeps away its deviants. The staff here does stink. If this place had half of the Platoon Sergeants from my platoon during the fight against the Quintessons, we'd have more mechs and femmes that find they want to be here and come away with more than a textbook definition,” the Older Warrior explained, as the old memories had come forward. Those memories had been drawn from his own internal RAM of his times in the trenches liberating their planet, and in the times he'd been forced to either listen to one of his Platoon Sergeants or a mean old Drill Sergeant that had believed the mechs and femmes before them hadn't been worth the oil.

“The students can been annoying. You haven't said anything I haven't heard before and I'll agree to that. I never could stand the holier than thou attitudes of many of the students that have passed through these halls. They couldn't even stand to pass a muster if the need arose or if the Quintessons ever returned,” Kup said. He'd had to justify his own actions in front of the faculty when he'd found a snotty mech or femme had taken a holier than thou attitude or attempted to even cheat in any of his courses. His own opinion in how how soft some of the Cybertronians had been hadn't been that well received by many in the faculty, including a few of the other Instructors.

“Megatron's a pain in the aftplate. That much, I'll say about him. The molten pits aren't good enough for that one,” the older mech muttered, before shifting his weight on the table. “I could tell that you answered your calling, but we both know that's a pint of bad oil. You wanted to act. I don't care what some scientist does to try and slice it or quantify it. You wanted to get back at him for that. Megatron should have been put down before this Uprising ever had a chance to become more than a case of indigestion. Back in the fight against the Quintessons or as it's known now as the War of Wrath, we sought the same thing. We wanted to revenge against them and wanted to prove we could exist without them. It was a different time,”

“The bots in these current cycles lack the ability to understand what you've figured out. There's a far greater difference in holding your ground and following what you believe than it is in filling a quota,” he'd continued.

“What if I were to ask you if you could do your best to change those around you? It's not so much that you have to prove to yourself that you want to do it, but that others need to have the sun visors ripped covering their optics ripped off their hinges. One of my old Platoon Sergeants used to say that it didn't matter how you did it, as long as you did it,” he'd finally asked.

[Hot Rod]

     Hot Rod really didn't know what to make of this old mech. Sure, he was going on and on but he was... agreeing with him? That made his optics narrow some as he studied him while the other spoke. He wasn't any good at reading body language so he couldn't tell what the other was up to- if he was up to anything. Had he gotten the short end of the stick like Hot Rod had, forced into having to do this task or risk losing everything in the same way? Or was he just playing him- trying to get on his good side as buddy buddy so he would be more agreeable to his training?

     He didn't know if he were being played or not. And he hated that. Plus, he didn't know what a filter was, so by the time Kup had finished what he was saying, Hot Rod was already pent up with frustration and tapping his pede against the side of the desk.

     "You give me far too much credit, old-timer," he used the new nickname without skipping a beat, as if that were the other mech's designation instead of his actual one. He straightened up in the chair and leaned forward with his elbows on his knee joints. "If I were in this for revenge and getting back at Megatron for what I saw him do, then I definitely wouldn't be here. I would have joined the Decepticons like it was leaning towards happening up until that point and wouldn't have flickered an optic at for his actions. The feeling of wanting to get back at someone would have been directed towards Zeta Prime and what he and his Autobot goons did to my city." Hot Rod stood and walked to the side of the desk opposite to Kup and sat there, arms crossed, staring at the wall. "But Zeta Prime is gone and I can't get to him for what he did, so the best I can do is stop a mech like Megatron from advancing his much more cruel agenda and hope the words that Optimus Prime spews is the truth. So far I can't find anyone that's got anythin' bad to say 'bout him, so I'll have to see."

     Hot Rod stared down at his pedes again. Honestly, it would be nice to live in a world without war, and if he could help stop the path of destruction Megatron left in his wake from furthering, he would. 

     "That's the only reason I'm here. Zeta was the problem then, Megatron is the problem now and I don't have anywhere else to go where I can maybe fit in. Doesn't seem like the Academy was really made for someone like me, though." He scoffed some. "Especially if now I gotta get one-on-one to even have a chance. I'm not the 'specially formulated soldier mech' type. I do things my way and... I guess that's just not the way they fly here."

[Deleted]

“I could go on about how there's something in your spark that led you here or there was a connection of electrical impulses to the chips in your main processor, but we both know that's a load of bolts. You said it yourself, if you wanted to you could have joined the Decepticons. You could have, but whether they would have accepted you is another matter,” Kup said, taking out a lighter for the Cy-Gar and toyed with it in his hand briefly.

“Opinions are a dangerous thing, but they're not so dangerous as the idea. The two factions, the Autobots led by Optimus Prime and the Decepticons by Megatron are after two different opinions with the basis of a singular idea. Both of these factions want to implement their changes to that idea, which is of a free Cybertron. Optimus Prime has his views, and will go into great lengths while practicing that extreme patience of his. On the other hand, Megatron has his. Experience has taught me that neither is entirely right, and neither is entirely wrong," he'd explained.

"It is up to your opinion of each, and which feels right. I'd go into detail, but I know that both of us at least know some of it already -- at least what the media would want us to think. Take your opinion of me. I know from your words that you think I'm an old timer and last decade's model. I'm fine with that because it doesn't change who I am or what I've done. I know most see me as in need of a quick trip to the recycle yard, or to the auto shop to get an upgrade. I won't on the former, and I can't on the latter. Fact of the matter, I don't really care what others think of me. I'm too old for that kind of thinking,” There had been a time deca-cycles ago, even farther back if his own memory had been able to recall that he'd cared what others had thought. He'd recalled having crawled off of the assembly line or rather after he'd been brought online that he'd toyed with the thought of caring about the opinion of others, but during his experiences during the War he'd been forced to have changed his processor.

He'd learned from those experiences that it hadn't truly mattered what others had thought of him, and even counted for less when those that had shared those trenches with him had either gone-offline or had other things happen to them. The only things he'd found had mattered in the end had been his actions, whether those actions had resulted in success or failure.

“You want to go off and face Megatron. If I told you that you couldn't, I wouldn't be here and you wouldn't either. If you're set on going after Megatron, you have to be smarter than he is. He's already a tough one, with a chasis hardened by the Pits of Kaon. You can't except to accomplish much by meeting him head-on. No, with someone like him you have to be smarter about it. You have to think in a way he won't. I didn't say in a way he couldn't because he's crafty,” he'd explained.

“I haven't survived as long as I have without having learned a very important lesson. Keeping your helm about you, or was it an anti-freeze cocktail with a bit of transmission fluid for flavor? Oh, never mind. I have more recipes locked in my memory than the entire Iacon Library,” Kup said. Taking the lighter in hand after having thought about it, he'd carefully lit the Cy-Gar and inhaled briefly before exhaling away from Hot Rod.

“Look, lad, you know why you're here. I'm not going to be some textbook gospel singer. I am going to train you how to use what you have, both in your weaponry and in your main and auxiliary processors. You want to get back at what he did to your city? I can teach you how, and without getting your helm blown off in the process,” the Old Warrior continued. “It's up to you whether you want to listen and be the better for it,”

[Hot Rod]

     Hot Rod's optic visibly twitched. They weren't kidding about this guy going on and on, that was for sure. He could almost feel the tension in his helm starting to happen as things twisted and turned out of frustration from having to sit so long and listen. If only he would...

     Shut up. Awesome! He'd finally stopped. 

     "So far you've talked big about training me and teaching me the noble path of the... whatever, I'm not gonna even try to repeat a third of what you've just said... but so far I'm still sitting here and you're still sitting there and the only thing I've been taught is how to smoke a Cy-gar." Hot Rod stared at Kup with a bit of a frown. "... and about how much trouble you could get into if I blab about this to the Administrator. But since I'm not one for being a tattle-tale, I'll just use this to my advantage. Teach me what I need to know and keep my record nice and clean from here on out, and I won't turn this information over." 

     Not that they would believe him or anything, but if they were as anxious about trying to find a reason to get rid of Kup the same way they were looking to get rid of Hot Rod, then it clearly would work in both of their favors to just pay attention, get along, and work together the best they could. Hot Rod wasn't sure if he'd be able to deal with this old timer that long if he kept flapping his mouth the way he had been, but he knew the rumors of what this Veteran had been through and figured that if anyone could teach him anything worthwhile, it would probably be him.

     He sat forward in the chair, elbows on his knees as he watched the other mech enjoying his little past time. Okay, maybe he didn't have the spark to ruin what little thing he seemed to actually like to do, but he wasn't about to let the other know in on that information. If the other could be played into thinking Hot Rod would turn him in if the training wasn't adequate to him, then he'd just play that harp as long as he could.

     "I'm ready to get started whenever you are. I had a big breakfast, got some punches in, and I'm ready to roll."

[Deleted]

“It used to be that I couldn't start a diurnal cycle off without taking a few puffs from a good Cy-Gar. It's a pity that they don't make the brand I used to like, but oh well...things always change,” Kup began, before dousing the Cy-Gar and placed it back into one of his hip pouches.

“You want to start the training now? I have the perfect place. You can be rest assured that you'll be running the Gauntlet, taking a few shots at the target ranges to engine maintenance, a nice hot oil bath where the oil works its way into your joints. For starters though, I want to see what you can do. You'll have plenty of room to rev that engine, and to do burnouts if that's what you what do to on the track. We'll get your reflexes honed before we get your optics trained...or is it the other way around...I forget which,” he'd say, a little absentminded or perhaps his memories had been a confusing mess to begin with.

“A big breakfast, you say? You'll need it. Come on. We'll go outside and out back. That is, unless you want to stay here in this detention room?” he'd ask. “When I get through with you, you'll be a finely honed mech capable of taking on even the Pits of Kaon with finesse,” The truth be told, Kup had wanted personally to see what the young mech had up his sleeve and what he'd been able to do. Throughout his cycles as an instructor, though short they were compared to his vast time online, he'd never been one to simply jot down a score in on a data PaDD or to let others do what he could do himself. 

[Hot Rod]

     He went on about the Cy-gar, as if Hot Rod cared at all about the brand he liked and about how they were no longer being made. He frowned some and made an audible grumble as the old mech went on and on, almost ready to just tune out his audials and let the other yak for however long he wanted to without subjecting the youth to the stories any further. 

     Though it was a good thing that he decided to stay tuned for just a little longer, for the sentence that came after was what he was really listening for. Start training now? For sure! He didn't get to answer, as the other started to describe what he was going to be going through. Something about what he said didn't seem quite right, but okay? He'd let him continue until he was finally done talking, though the youth was almost too exited and on the edge of the seat by that time that the old mech almost didn't have that opportunity. He jumped to his pedes before the other could and started to the door.

     "Stay here? No way! This is a huge waste of both our times. I wasn't planning on staying either way, but if you're giving the goahead to get outta this chamber pot, I'm all for it. Not like the director can say scrap about it if the teacher tasked with teaching me says to head out." Hot Rod grinned, just ready to get started. Though part of what had hit his audials was not something he wasn't already trained to do. "So you want to teach me to shoot first and ask later, is what you're saying? Okay, that's fine. That I can do. But if I tag someone's aft that I ain't supposed to, I'm not taking the blame for it. That's all yours."

     He left the room, wanting to go already and not really wanting to wait, but he had to. If anyone saw him in the hallway when he was supposed to be in detention without his instructor, there would be questions and someone for sure would bust his chops over it. That, and he didn't really know where he was headed, so there was that. So he waited outside of the room, tapping his pede lightly to show his impatience with having to wait yet again.

     "Come on, Old-timer! If you take any longer I'm gonna grow rust on my joints before we even get to the first lesson!"

[Deleted]

“That's exactly what I'm saying. I want to see what you're capable of. If going to the target range is how you want to go about it, I'm not one to argue,” Kup said, turning to follow the younger mech out of the room.

“If you tag someone's aft, it means the other bot missed out on the fundamentals. My colleague in that course, the Professor of it has been at times known to have a bad axle that jumps everywhere,”

“Rust on your joints? I could give you a solution that'll work against that, but perhaps I'll save it for later. You want to prove yourself," he'd say. 

* * * * * * *

[Academy]
[Target-Range]
[Outside]

The target range had been located outside of the Academy or least outside the main building, and had been located on the grounds of the Academy. The target range had been designed with roughly a dozen stalls, individual stations numbered with the corresponding static targets selected from a relatively vast archive which had at times had students complain about either supposed outdated profiles or had in some way or another offended the sensibilities of a student or two. He'd seen the selections in the computer change over time, and had even felt that the more modern students had things rather easily laid out for them. The lack of an over-arching conflict until very recently with the upstart Gladiator from Kaon hadn't exactly helped matters, and in his opinion had only made the students -- along with the faculty more lazy and complacent.

In the early cycles after he'd been brought online, there hadn't been any Academies for the fledgling Autobots to have trained in resulting in the fledgling Autobots training either in caverns, old hulks of decommissioned garbage scows or even old abandoned warehouses or wherever they'd been able to find. He'd even recalled that he'd had rocks, and even a dead Quintesson's tentacles used against him once during such training. There had even been a time when he'd witnessed, albeit in his own obstacle course that another student being pelted by used mufflers. Those had been rather fun times, he'd mused.

“I'll let you take your pick of which stall, and aisle you want,” Kup began, having approached the target range. “Normally, I'd set the computer to a predetermined time and let you tackle one target at a time. Each time you would dispatch it, the target would come back a little bit more powerful. This time though, I doubt that will be needed. I can switch the computer to the voice activated mode to where it can materialize or send as many targets within a reasonable limit against you,”

"I'll admit, the computer limits the type of damage incurred from the weapons the targets might hold. It's something I couldn't even override,” he'd explain. Crossing over to a compute console, he'd started typing in his faculty ID and even his own security clearance.

[Hot Rod]

     Hot Rod visibly frowned at Kup's words. "Limits the... what? That the TARGETS hold?! WHY would you even WANT to override that?!" Hot Rod was beginning to think that this mech really was off the rocker. He wanted to be able to override the amount of damage the targets could have on the students? Sure, Hot Rod was all about knocking a few of his enemies here off their pedestals with a swift kick to their afts, but he wasn't wanting to risk offlining them!

     Okay, that was probably a white lie. Maybe there were two or three he wouldn't feel particularly upset over if they were to be turned into scrap, but that was beside the point. Plus, he didn't actually lie since the words hadn't left his mouth. Every point of of that thought would forever stay with him.

     "Ya know what? Don't... just forget I even repeated that, and I'll forget I even heard it. I don't want to be called in as a witness for knowing something I shouldn't know. I just want to be able to deny everything. Lets just get this started, okay?" Hot Rod waved his servo then made his way to the first stall in the first aisle. It was the easiest to pick from, and first was always the best anyway, so he just went with that. Nothing like logic to make his choices, right?

     Primus, this could only end badly.

     "Okay, so... what do I do? I don't exactly have a weapon or anything. Do you hand me one or does one just materialize out of thin air?" He hadn't been to the target range, he hadn't been assigned a weapon, didn't have one on him, so he just looked at Kup waiting for the answer to his question.

[Deleted]

“I got you, didn't I?” Kup smirked, with a little amusement.

He hadn't been about to override the damage limiters programmed into the range targets, as a means to protect the cadets from actually being damaged during their training, although he'd known a little code that allowed the programmed damage limits to be overridden. He'd never had to actually utilize that code, but whenever he did bring that up it often caused cadets to either cringe enough that they shook the very bolts out of their frames or they'd be suspicious and wouldn't want to know much more about it from the older mech.

“I wouldn't override those programmed limits anyways. It is a good way to get myself busted out of the Academy, but I only use it to catch the attention of those cadets that have either dozed off or are thinking of something else,” he'd say.

“You don't need a weapon, or at least me to hand you one. You have a few programmed into you already,” the aging mech replied, shifting his weight a little and began to at least bring up the first of at least a dozen levels in the targeting range.

“You could either take a look in the training weapon's rack over there...” he'd say, gesturing to the rack full of training blasters and rifles that could be switched to either non-lethal bolts or more realistic ammunition albeit on a limited basis. Those same training weapons had been programmed to only be used within the confines of the training target range, the obstacle courses and even in friendly sparring matches, and if some mech or femme had decided to take the weapon or weapons from that area the weapons became useless. “...or you could use my musket laser if you wanted? Though, I'd imagine, you'd want to use your own. Those exhaust pipes along your forearm aren't for show, are they? Each of the new model femmes and mechs that come in through those doors of the Academy are designed with newfangled features and weapons than even a platoon during my early deca-cycles after coming online could even bring to bear,”

[Hot Rod]

     "... If I don't off myself, I have a feeling that you're gonna do it for me." Hot Rod grumbled some to himself, then looked at the silver pipes on his forearms. Sure, he could use those, but he thought there was going ot be more to this training. "I thought you were supposed to teach me, ya know... survival techniques or whatever? Like, if my own weapons fail me I should be trained to use multiple other weapons, right?"

     Slagging son of a monkeys uncle, was that a mistake.

     Mistake was a nice word for it after all was said and done.
     Slagging mistakes were made, alright.

     After that disgraceful performance at the firing range and the even lesser exit of it, Hot Rod now sat at the empty mess hall with his instructor, frowning as he looked at his cube of standard grade energon. Various parts of his frame had small singe marks here and there, and he would have sworn to anything that he could still smell some of them still on fire, even though none of them were. He looked at Kup with a look that could kill, picked up the cube in one servo, downed it, then slammed the now empty cube right back down.

     "LISTEN HERE," he started, not caring that he was loud. They were the only ones there- everyone else was recharging in their dorms, and he didn't really care of he woke anyone up or disturbed the beauty rest of the ones unfortunate enough to have sensitive hearing. "When I said that I thought you were supposed to teach me SURVIVAL TECHNIQUES, that didn't mean 'LETS SEE HOW FAST YOU CAN RUN'." He shot his arms out to his sides and failed them around almost comically, not really knowing how to properly display just how annoyed he was at the mech across the table from him.

     "I KNEW you were trying to kill me, I just didn't think you would be so OBVIOUS as to turn me into molten metal RIGHT THERE ON THE RANGE! What is WRONG with you? Are you just... MALFUNCTIONED?! I am never, EVER training with you again! Academy be damned, they can just write my rejection disc and send me on my way."

     After a few more insults and jabs, Hot Rod seemed to have calmed down enough to have a civil conversation, even though he was clearly still fuming just by how he was staring at Kup coupled with the pout of his lip to really enhance his frustration. He grabbed the other cube of standard grade and pulled it in front of him, staring at it for a nanoklik, then took a small sip before letting out an exvent to show his exhaustion. Running around for his live while things were set to do some rather nasty damage was not how he expected to spend his midcycle. It wasn't anything that would be crippling, but man, did the first couple hits still HURT. Being told that the setting couldn't be lowered felt like a lie but he didn't think that was something that would be admitted to.

     "So now I'm curious, you misfiring bucket of rejected parts. All that talking that you did earlier. If you didn't feel either side was entirely right or entirely wrong, why did you decide to go with the Autobots? From what I understood, they weren't really the good guys in all this early on."