Lessons Learned

The Fall of the Senate

We meet again. I'm not going to lie, writing this chapter was problematic. I kept having to go back and forth between what elements of what universes to use. Hopefully it came out decently. In the meantime, please enjoy. Oh, and for a little clarity, the disperser mentioned in this and the last chapter is the Transformers equivalent of a shower.

Arcee was broken out of revising her notes for the next lesson by a loud shriek. Running to the door of the classroom she saw Jack running away from Miko. Arcee snorted as she looked at Miko. Instead of the dark grey and burgundy she was colored like a hummingbird. She looked like that 'tooth fairy' from the movie Raf had picked for them watch a few weeks ago.

"Get back here Jackrabbit." She yelled. "I want to show you my favorite way to skin a cat."

"What's wrong pretty bird?" Jack taunted playfully. "I think the colors suit you. Besides, it's payback for that 'Liger Zero' paint job you gave me." He had slipped away from lunch and prepped the paint gun she used earlier. He caught her with it when she was coming out of the mess hall.

Arcee stepped into the hall and picked Miko up under her armpits. "Alright, that's enough. Jack, get to your seat. Miko, hit the disperser and get ready for class." She set the grumbling femme down as her partner ran into the classroom. "And stop giving me that look Miko, you know he's right about the payback."

Miko pouted as she was put back down. Arcee watched as she went to get cleaned up, then turned to her partner. "I don't think I've ever seen you pull a prank before Jack, what gives?"

"I was feeling playful. And it was either I get her back, or the Protectobots did." Jack answered. "They were pretty annoyed after their Power Ranger paintjob. Besides, she did look cute like that." He added, looking down at the floor.

Arcee rolled her optics, beauty was in the eye of the beholder she supposed. "Take your seat Jack, we'll be starting as soon as Miko gets back." Ten minutes later the class had reconvened. Miko was still pouting about her boyfriends' prank on her.

"Alright everyone." Arcee began. "Picking up where we left off. Nominus Prime and the senate had destroyed the space bridge network to prevent cosmic rust from infecting Cybertron." She began.

"However, the expansion had a severe drawback that became apparent afterwards. The planets' natural energon reserves were horribly depleted by the constant use of the Omega Lock." Arcee began.

"We had too many Cybertronians, and less than an adequate amount of energon to sustain them. This led to a rationing that tied into the caste and guild system I mentioned before." She explained. "If you were rich or considered were 'essential' you got undiluted energon daily. If you were working class, you either got partially diluted daily or regular grade every other day. Then, if you were considered 'disposable' meaning you transformed into something that you could build yourself, or worse and animal, you were given enough energon to stay alive, but never enough to fully charge you."

"What do you mean by that?" Sierra asked.

"Cybertronians that had beast modes were often regulated to labor or worse, test animals." Arcee explained to the horrified Maximals. She knew that all of them had beast modes and would've been subjected to those kinds of lives under the old senate.

"There had to have been some kind of rebellion against this." Nautica said with wide optics. She knew Cybertron had problems, but this?

Arcee sighed. "There were several attempts, but the senate was usually able to squash insurrections quickly. This was tied into the court systems." She paused and thought how best to bring this up. "Oftentimes, when someone spoke out, they would vanish, only to reappear with."