XXXII. Son Of A Gun

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“This is such a bad idea!” Catherine groaned as she sat atop Steeljaw’s back, the metal lion standing off to the side as the two others mechs—Sideswipe and Jolt—grinned like fools while they fumbled with one of the many pop-up targets in the Autobot’s training hangar. They completely ignored her as Sideswipe held the panel on the target’s chest open, revealing the empty space within that was slowly being filled with paint. The drones were more so human shaped than Cybertronian, but they were also hollow and large enough to put gallons of paint in them and also fit a lovely little Energon explosive to go off at a particular time thanks to Sideswipe’s clever mind and Jolt’s engineering skills.

“Oh, stop worrying, ‘Cat! It’s going to be fine!” the silver mech laughed, casting a quick glance in her direction. Beneath her, Steeljaw shifted and attempted to look back, but his metal mane’s panels made it so he could just barely catch glimpse of her.

“Ironhide is busy training the human troops and will not return for many hours, so we are quite safe,” the lion assured her, but she wasn’t worried about Ironhide finding them while setting up the prank. She was more worried about when he would find out as a victim. That was going to be worse.

“Why are we even doing this?” she huffed, folding her arms.

Sideswipe rolled his optics, “Geez. What’s with you? You’re starting to sound like Ironhide! He’s just getting back a little of what he’s always dishing out to us in training. He gives us dents and bruises—”

“—And we give him pink-covered armor,” Jolt finished, his grin widening.

“And you honestly think this is going to end well?”

“Well, since you’re taking the blame… Kind of,” the silver mech laughed, and let the panel fall once Jolt had all the paint poured in. He then reached into his subspace—or that’s what she knew it was called, anyways. Ratchet had explained it was a large spacing that they could decrease or increase in size by moving their armor around the base frame that was their main body. Pretty much anything could be placed into the subspace—equipment; items; weapons, although those were normally integrated into the base frame; and bombs, as Sideswipe demonstrated when he pulled out the watch-like contraption.

Catherine had to admit it; for being an idiot most of the time, the silver mech was actually kind of smart, or creative, she supposed. He had managed to adapt human technology with Cybertronian Energon to create a nifty time bomb that would go off during Ironhide’s practice and splatter him with paint. The bomb would be harmless, of course, except in regards to the target drone. That would be destroyed completely and paint would get everywhere, but that was the idea.

“Alright, so you’re sure you have it set for exactly when Ironhide will come for this drone?” Jolt inquired seriously, and Sideswipe nodded back just as such.

“Yeah. I’ve been monitoring his training the past week and he follows the exact same pattern. If nothing gets in the way, it should work perfectly!”

“Good. Then let’s—”

“What are you guys doing?” a familiar, but not-supposed-to-be-there voice spoke up, and all four turned, deer-in-the-headlights on maximum power, and stared at the two, curious and confused figures of Blazemaster and Evac. The staring contest went on for a good full ten seconds, both sides trying to figure out the other, although Catherine’s mine was more preoccupied with the fact they had been found and she was going to be in so much trouble. It only got worse as Evac’s head tilted, his visor focusing on the silver mech's curious item.

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