Waiting for Next Time

 Everyone sat in stunned silence, looking at Hotshot, whom had tears running down his face, as his entire body trembled. No one moved one bit, too shocked by the sudden outburt. Hotshot was glaring at his mentor who had a look of shock and guilt.

"You never pay attention, you never cared, Heatwave! All you do is send me on useless chores, as if I'm the chore boy of the entire academy! If we have such an issue with it, hire someone to clean it, do not make a child do it!" Hotshot yelled as his trembling got worse and his vision blurred from his tears. "BUT, worse of all, everything is my fault, isn't it. I'm always the first to blame, granted some are a given, but come on man! Not everything is my fault! I had no training in rescue work, as I don't have the finances for it, so you can't blame me for messing something up that I don't even know how to do! I literally got picked up from the streets to come here, for frag sake."

"Picked up from the streets?" Heatwave asked hoarsly, mild horror coming onto his face.

"Oh, so now your telling me that you haven't even read my file?! Wonderful! You know what, frag this! I am done with you all, I quit. Have fun with this stupid academy," Hotshot exclaims, leaving without a moments notice as the door shut behind the young bot. The room was stunned silent as Ratchet and Bee entered the room from the opposite door that Hotshot exited. The two quieted and looked around confused on why they were all so shocked or stunned, as well as how quiet it was, which is unusual for the day.

"What happened?" Ratchet asked carefully, eyeing everyone in the room. Not one answered, as the others looked at the door that Hotshot left. Whirl gulped before looking towards Ratchet to answer his question. It took her a couple of minutes of opening and closing her mouth before something came out.

"Hotshot, umm, yelled and got mad. He kinda blowed up and said he quit the academy and left," she whispered still in shock.

"Fraging finally," Bee said bluntly, causing everyone to turn to him in schock and surprised. "Now Optimus owes me a cube of high grade."

"Seriously?" Heatwave and Ratchet exclaimed, the former yelling it out.

"What? Ratchet, both you and I both know that this will eventually happen, even Optimus could see it coming from a mile away, and he is very dense for an adult. Hotshot was already broken and this place was not doing him any good," Bee responded. Ratchet nodded in agreement.

"I agree that we saw it coming, I was more surprised that you and Optimus made a bet," Ratchet informed him.

"Hold up. Wait moment. Let's take it a step back. You two knew this was going to happen?" Hoist asked.

"Yeah, this is new to us. And we should have known about this, we are his teachers," Boulder commented, which caused the two to sigh and shake their heads.

"To be honest, I don't think you would have noticed anything different, as you need to know what to look for. But, there are some things you should have known and drew connections to from his files," Bee answered.

"The...files that none of us read," Chase said as it dawned on them that they should have read those files.

"Clearly. Even I read them. I treated him like I treated everyone, given with a little more kindness, but he already knew me from before, so," Ratchet responded, shrugging.

"So have I, but only in passing though," Bee commented. The room was silent for a couple of moments, awkward tension filling the room. For Bee and Ratchet, it was the utter lack of understanding for the recruits and that they had little understanding of one of them, if not all of them. For the others, it was the fact that they were being called out of their incompetence, but also that they didn't notice that someone was struggling.

"What do we do now?" Wedge asked nervously, he didn't want Hotshot to leave the academy at all. Hotshot felt like someone he could trust, but it was evident that feeling was not reciprocated at all.

"Nothing," Optimus said, walking in finally. A sharp intake was made by almost everyone in the room, given the three that had a feeling that this would happen didn't. "Take this as a lesson for what not to do when you may not know someone's full story. Meanwhile, Bee, Ratchet and I will see what we can do to get him to return, but if we can not convince him, then that is that. The recruits of this academy class will only be Hoist, Medix, Whirl, and Wedge."

"But that is not fair! Hotshot is part of our class too," Hoist protested as Bee sighed and shook his head.

"But wasn't it him that said that he quit, or were you guys not telling the truth with that information," Bee responded back, shutting them up. Ratchet, Optimus, and Bee sighed. "Look, he probably cares about you all, but I think he is done being a place he'd may consider a war zone."

"But we are not in a war?" Chase commented.

"Not to you, but this entire academy and it's rules, expectations, and knowledge that is either needed or considered basic, does not the way he grew up as. I know the area he grew up in. Most the people there were poor, there were no expectations for the kids, but if they succeeded in getting out, they were celebrated by the community even if they were not to return. You had to fight to live and the people there only hoped you understood the basic rules of curtesy to live. He went from being free to being confined. I would expect him to struggle," Ratchet answered truthfully.

"The three of us should go and leave them to their own devices, Ratchet. They probably need time to process this," Bee informed the medic. Ratchet nodded as the three left to go find Hotshot. The room was silent, all occupants were lost into their own mind.

"What do we do now, Heatwave? What should we do?" Blades asked, finally interrupting the long silence that came about them. There was not a response for a while.

"We wait and hope that they come back with him. We really messed up with him," Heatwave answered.

"I'll go read the files and and inform you of anything that I learned," Chase said. He left a few seconds later, being the first to leave, the other teachers leaving shortly after. The recruit were silent as they realized the implications that it could be just the four of them, just like it almost was at the end of the first year, only this time, it's a bit more real.

"So it really could be just the four of us this time around?" Whirl commented, and no one answered the question, but they were all think of it themselves. A few tears rolled down her face as Hoist gave her a hug, a few tears going down his face too. Unlike the first time, where Hotshot was joining a cube team, they had no idea what he was going to do, let alone if he would be okay at all. There being four of them was not something they wanted to think about, but it was a reality that was hitting them in the face completely, and none of them enjoyed the feeling of being left behind.

"I don't like this, let alone that we have to wait for others to find him. We should be the ones finding him, we are his friends!" Wedge growled in frustration, anger building in all of them for what was asked from them.

"But are we his friends?" Medix asked as the entire room deflated into sadness. "I mean, we all know bits and pieces of all of our pasts, and yet, we knew next to nothing about him other than that he like cube, until today. Can we really call us his friends when we know almost nothing about him.

"Your right, we really can't," Hoist said sadly, a depressing silence filling the room again. Whirl sighed.

"I don't think there is anything we can do to help, anyways. Due to our lack of knowledge, and the fact that we are just recruits, what good would we do?" Whirl sighed, her face clearly done and broken as Wedge sighed.

"I guess you all are right. But I just feel usless. I care about Hotshot, and now that he may never return, it hurts a lot," Wedge agreed, as the other recruits all nodded in agreement.

"I think I am going to get some air. And some time to think," Whirl said, leaving the room alone. One by one, the group all left to do their own thing to process the whole event. Every bot was left in the academy was taking it hard, it was not easy for them to see the most easy going bot give up so quickly. They all cared about him, though none of them saw his grief. Though Heatwave was taking it the hardest, as he felt that he should have seen it coming from a mile away.

"Primus, I really failed this kid, didn't I?" Heatwave muttered as he read the file for Hotshot. For once since the class came to the academy, there was pure silence in the halls.