pullmeoutalive | log > how are these two so darn cute?

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log > how are these two so darn cute?

It had been an admittedly strange situation they had all been in - shopping mall, zombies, black outs - it was like a horror film gone wrong.

No one had any explanation for their sudden appearance in the mall, nor did anyone have an explanation for their sudden disappearance from the mall. Just as no one had an explanation for the blue Chevrolet Volt currently parked outside of B.A.B.E.L. headquarters.

For his own part, Jolt was doing what Autobots did best (aside from kicking Decepticon skidplate), and that was hiding in plain sight. Asphalt and sunshine, he decided, were preferable to zombie-laden carpet and the near-darkness of a mall without power. He just didn't like having to wait while Naomi was inside - no doubt trying to explain where the frag she'd been all this time. Jolt'd had a similar problem relaying his whereabouts to - of all mechs - Ratchet. (No doubt the medic thought he was glitched for insisting he'd been fighting off zombies all this time.) But, after much instance, and pleading for Optimus' permission, Jolt was allowed to stay with Naomi for the time being.

The Autobot sighed inwardly. He was still waiting, and he still hated it.

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"..." Judging from the look on her face, Naomi hadn't thought that far ahead-- and clearly wasn't looking forward to getting him down, but it was excellent practice for her power and control.

That was later, though, and she gratefully settled on his hand with a soft sigh. She always felt so tiny and insignificant when compared to him, but there was the part of her that also felt so incredibly safe.

So long as she had adequate time to rest in between the act of putting him up there and that act of getting him down, he was okay with letting her try.

Making sure that Naomi was safely cradles in his palm, the Autobot settled into a sit, propping his arm up on his knee so they could talk on the same basic level. "So-" It was nice getting to talk with her this way again. The hologram was all well and good, but it never beat being optic-to-eye with her. "What did you wanna talk about?"

"You've been learning about B.A.B.E.L. and what it is we do, and I know you'll learn even more, but..." Making herself comfortable in his palm, Naomi met his gaze. "I want to learn more about you, Jolt-san. Your friends, your world, yourself... anything you're fine with talking about."

"That's um--" Not what Jolt had been expecting, but he supposed he couldn't really fault her for wanting to know. They were friends - and if they were going to be working together, partners, in a sense - and he didn't see what harm there was in telling her. "That's a lot of stuff. Anywhere specifically you want me to begin?"

The teenager hummed thoughtfully under her breath, tapping her chin until she had an answer.

"... Who you worked with," she said at last. "I think you said something about huma-- ah, organics-- too, as well as your other soldiers. I'm a little curious."

"Okay then." While Jolt didn't exactly possess a mouth, it was obvious in the slight narrowing of his optics that he was grinning.

"Right now, there's-" a pause as he ran through the numbers again. "Nine of us on Earth- twelve if you count the fact that Arcee is three mechs but one consciousness - and don't ask me how that works. Some new thing our medic cooked up. Anyway! Optimus is our leader, then there's Ratchet who's our medic. Ironhide is the weapons specialist - he is one tough old soldier, but so, so cool. Bumblebee... I don't see him a whole lot, since he's got a human to look after. Me, Sideswipe, Arcee, and the twins-" there was a little bit of an annoyed look here, but it passed quickly. "Are all pretty new recruits."

Naomi listened intently, eyes focused on his face, and nodded every once in awhile to show that he still had an enthralled audience. Nine-- twelve-- Autobots living in a world not their own, and she'd never even had an inkling about it until she'd tried to defend a car that fateful day. The mention of twins earned her friend a raised eyebrow, but she was smiling when he finished.

"You're new and already this skilled? That really is amazing, Jolt-san. And your friend... has a human to look after?" That was somewhat confusing-- was the human young enough to require a babysitter and, even then, why would that babysitter be an Autobot?

The Autobot shook his head a little. "Sideswipe and I- we were made to be soldiers. That's our function. We're skilled because we have to be." He gave a little shrug, mindful of the fact that Naomi was seated in his hand. "As for Sam - Bumblebee's charge - that's a long, long story."

"I won't make you tell it, then," she said apologetically. "He must be a very interesting person, to say the least." And important, if hunches told her anything. It was nice to know that alien robots could get along with what some might call inferior beings, but she'd long since learned that for herself.

About to ask another question, Naomi caught herself and lightly pressed her palm to her forehead. "I'm sorry, I'm going to bombard you at this rate... was there anything you wanted to know?"

"Sam? To be honest I've never actually talked to him." Considering the circumstances under which they first met, he didn't exactly blame the kid. It had been nothing short of a war zone in Egypt, and Sam was a little busy trying to stay alive. So no, they hadn't spoken. Maybe he should remedy that one day. "From what I understand, he's very... interesting." That smile was back in his optics as he recalled the fondness in which 'Bee always referred to the human.

"Hm." He considered the question a little. Naomi could do things he didn't even know humans were capable of, so of course he was curious. "Were you always-" a pause as he tried to recall the word "-psychokinetic? Or did it just kinda happen one day or what?"

She'd never received that question before, and Naomi had to sift through her memory in order to correctly answer it. As she did, she leaned back slightly, perfectly at ease on Jolt's palm.

"I didn't start displaying it until I was twelve. I can't remember exactly how it happened, just that I'd been scared at the time, and the next thing I knew, everything around me started... moving. Even the building." She laughed sheepishly, recalling things in better detail now. "That frightened me even more, of course. I thought I was some sort of monster, especially because the other kids were normal, and there weren't any espers above Level 1 or 2. The power I was using put me at Level 4 or 5, but I didn't understand any of that until later."

"So you were always pretty powerful?" The Autobot inquired, sounding impressed. He shook his head, eyes smiling. "And you call me amazing." Dimly, he thought perhaps he should find another adjective for Naomi, but he was hard-pressed to find another word for "amazing".

"You ask one, I ask one, so... your turn, if you want."

She wanted to protest-- there was a difference between having power and knowing how to use it correctly and, as far as she was concerned, Jolt was the more impressive one-- but the prospect of learning more about him was more tempting than offering up denial.

With that in mind, Naomi tilted her head up, considering her options. "Your home," she commented thoughtfully. "What was it like? Did you only come to Earth because of your enemy?"

The cant of his head indicated he'd be frowning slightly if he could. The war was never really a touchy subject for Jolt, but it had a tendency to be depressing. Still, he figured Naomi had a right to know. "The Cybertron I knew was a battlefield. I suppose it was probably beautiful, once, but the war had torn it apart." He gave a halfhearted shrug. "We followed Megatron here. He was after the Allspark - a very, very powerful artifact from our world. He's still here, somewhere."

"Still here?" Naomi was now doing enough frowning for the both of them-- more out of concern than anything else, of course. "Shouldn't you all be looking for him? I mean, he sounds dangerous, and if he's hiding..." Hostile espers were one thing, as were the Normals who hated them, but that could very easily pale to a power-seeking antagonistic robot.

There was that shrug again. "He won't be cropping up again any time soon- not after the last beating Optimus gave him." There was a smile in his voice as he fondly recalled Optimus' retelling of relieving the Decepticon leader of half of his face. The fight had been two-on-one, and Optimus Prime had still emerged victorious, while Megatron went crying to Starscream.

"Don't worry," he added, noting the way Naomi was frowning. "We do our best to put an end to any Decepticon activity before it even gets started."

"You've done a good job." Reassured by this, Naomi mustered a smile. "I haven't heard anything about that kind of activity, and that must be because all of you were able to suppress it successfully." She laughed quietly, adding, "It really is amazing, what you've done for us."

Not for the first time, Jolt was glad he was incapable of blushing. However, there was a soft whir as his fans kicked on, cooling systems that had begun to run warmer at Naomi's heaping of compliments, which only served to make him more embarrassed. "Er." Suddenly the sky was very, very interesting. "That's- it's nothing much, really. It's not your war in the first place, and we don't want it to turn into that, you know?"

Edited 2009-09-25 04:30 (UTC)

She heard the whirring, lifting an eyebrow curiously, but it didn't seem to be anything worrisome, so she didn't ask. Instead, she nodded and drew her legs a little closer to her body. Sitting this high up at night hadn't been the best idea for someone whose uniform consisted of a miniskirt, leggings, and blouse.

"I'd still fight it, if it came to that," she commented after a moment. "Your turn, Jolt-san."

Ah. Jolt didn't blame her for being cold- it was cold, and he was made of metal and probably not helping.

He still had the blanket... somewhere. Primus knows he didn't want that thing getting all tangled up in his servos when he transformed, so he'd discarded it somewhere during the process and--- oh, there it was. He leaned forward, keeping Naomi propped up on his hand as best he could, which meant a brief moment of personal space invasion for the both of them before he straightened and offered her the blanket.

There was a brief moment of silence as Jolt mulled over his next question. "What do you like about this place?" He indicated the building on which they were seated with a nod. "What keeps you here?"

The girl didn't budge as Jolt shifted, trusting in him to keep her steady and not even flinching when he drew even closer. She accepted the blanket with a soft murmur of thanks, wasting no time in wrapping herself up in it. Yes, that was much better.

"It's the people, mostly," she confessed. "There's another organization I could have joined, but they hate Normals. B.A.B.E.L., though... the supervisors, the chief, Kashiwagi-san... they're all normal humans, and they've given up so much to protect us, to help us prove to society that not all espers should be feared. Even my supervisor..." The usual grimace accompanied the mention. "He kept me from having to deal with an electric collar if I 'misbehaved', he never took the credit for the missions he coached me through, he was the reason I could go to high school like a normal girl... and he's the person who taught me to trust in others."

Naomi looked thoughtful now, almost sad. "I don't want to know what I would have been like if I hadn't been taken in. But I owe those people so much, and I do want to protect whoever needs it. That's why I'm still here. This place is my home and everyone at B.A.B.E.L. is my family."

It was nothing short of astounding that a sleazeball of Tanizaki's caliber had done so much for Naomi. It certainly had the Autobot wondering if, somewhere, the human genuinely cared for her, or if he was just that keen on protecting his own interests. Jolt settled on the latter, but he was probably biased.

That aside, he understood her position. The Autobots, even NEST, was his family, and he would do anything for them and their cause. (Though if he ever voiced this opinion to them, Sideswipe and the twins would rag on him for the next deca-cycle.) "I know how you feel," he said at length, deciding there was no such threat of razzing from Naomi.

True, there was no threat at all. If anything, she found the admission to be sweet. If Jolt had anything like male pride-- and she was certain he did-- saying something like that had to be hard.

"You too," she told him now, as serious as a teenager wrapped in a blanket could be. "You're just as important to me as they are."

Jolt blinked at her. Once. Twice. And then that grin spread back across his faceplates. "Yeah?" He didn't wait for confirmation- he didn't need it. Naomi's sincerity was confirmation enough. "You're important to me, too."

She might have grinned in return-- except, unlike certain alien robots, Naomi was more than capable of blushing and less than capable of suppressing it. She couldn't understand it-- why was she blushing in the first place? B.A.B.E.L. had made it overwhelmingly obvious that she was important to them, and she'd been flustered by it, but never to this extent.

Right, a question. A distraction-- question.

"Do you have anybody back there-- I mean, anyone you like, like-- you said one of your Autobots was female, so--" Of course, he could be the type to like male... bots, and she wouldn't judge. But did they even... have relationships like that? There was a lot she still didn't know about.

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