Back To You

Chapter 16: Cube for Thought

"And Hotshot makes the winning point!" He held the Cube over his helm, "..the crowd goes wild!" imagining the bright spotlights shining down on him as cheers resonated around him.

Then, a pair of real claps caught him off guard. "If you're done playing pretend, we're setting up the lounge for movie night." Wedge stood at the entrance, grinning back at him.

Hotshot rolled his optics. "Yeah, sure. Be there in a minute. Hey, pick something action-y, will you?"

"It's Medix's turn to pick the movie." Wedge shrugged as he walked away, leaving Hotshot alone with his Cube.

He flung the Cube into the air, initiating a new game. It was hard to believe a whole semester and a half had already passed. Two more months and Year One would come to an end. He had come a long way since that first SIM practice as both a rescuer and a bot, so much so he was sure his past self from a year ago would flip if he saw just how much his mindset had changed over the past six months.

Back on Cybertron, prior to coming to Earth, he seemed vain, egotistical,..a tad bit pretentious, but he wasn't always that way. He proved to be a selfless, compassionate, and caring bot from a very young age. Sharing with his playmates at daycare had never been an issue; he rarely got into trouble with his teachers in primary school, he got along fine with his classmates with only a handful of incidents as he got older, and he loved and cared for his Carrier, of course.

No, Hotshot's egotistical mindset stemmed from a place of insecurity and loneliness, and it all started the day he walked to school alone for the first time.

Bright and early on a random school day, he awoke in an empty house. He ran all over looking for his Carrier, but when it was clear she was gone, his first instinct was to panic. His nerves were so bad he went as far as breaking the 'no direct communication through comms' rule, trying to reach her. In the present, Hotshot grimaced, having missed a catch because he'd been distracted by the unfolding memory in his mind.

After a few seconds of static buzz, he finally heard her voice in a low whisper. "Hotshot?" "Carrier?" he remembered how his throat tightened and the relief he felt knowing she was okay. "I'm sorry, I can't talk right now, love. I left a note on the kitchen table next to your things. Have a good day at school."

The note she left explained she'd been sent on a business trip earlier than scheduled and apologized that she couldn't send him to school that day. Hotshot dryly chuckled, remembering how he didn't understand what his Carrier meant by 'business trip' at the time. He would eventually learn of her position as a Special Ops Agent and go on to develop a secret code of sorts so they could call or text without her boss getting mad.

Aside from not knowing where to put his servo the whole time, walking alone was okay at first. Like most other younglings his age, he wasn't allowed to drive on the main road yet because he lacked the proper training on road safety. So, with no other options, he walked down the vacant streets, remembering each turn he needed to take, but as others started merging onto his route, he started feeling uneasy.

Before, when his Carrier walked him, he never paid attention to all the other younglings walking alongside them. However, that day, he did notice, particularly on the fact that, unlike him, no one walked alone.

The route felt twice as long that day as he focused on some of the other younglings, all wearing bright smiles while holding onto their guardians' servos. He clenched his own servo, instantly missing his Carrier's warm, firm grasp.

From then on, he got used to either holding a warm servo or nothing but air all the way to school in sporadic intervals. And occasionally, he'd see one or two other younglings walking alone—one of whom, Scorch, became his closest childhood friend—and felt a little better knowing he wasn't the only one.