[fic]: Count to Three
Title: Count to Three
Rating: T
Verse: IDW, pre-war
Warnings: Some violence.
Summary: Follows from this fic, Hun-Grrr continues trying to teach Blot the fine art of firing a projectile weapon. Written for kalaryx , with the prompt 'maths lesson'
Notes: Horray I don't know anything about guns!!
There wasn't much difference, Hun-Grrr thought, between the starry night above and the glittering skyline of Kaon before them. It wasn't a poetic comparison, it was just because the decaying, abandoned buildings had only sporadic bright spots among them. He was fairly certain several of those lights were fires anyways, adding to the bleak scene of a city crumbling under the failure of their government. The entire view was back lit by the glow of the still thriving cities. Hun-Grrr wouldn't mind seeing them burn as well.
“Alright,” he said, turning away from the skyline to Blot, who was clutching a sniper rifle as if the wind would snatch it away. They were fairly high up, on the roof of another mostly-abandoned building, but the wind wasn't all that bad. Blot had just developed a fear of failure when it came to dealing with guns, and tonight was another chance for him to dispel that fear. “Ready?”
Blot looked past him, out over the expanse of the city, then down at the rifle in his hands. No, he probably wasn't ready, but that wasn't the point of this. Blot couldn't hit a target to save his chassis with a hand gun or an assault rifle, so Hun-Grrr was taking a wild chance on the fact that maybe, just maybe, Blot could hit something far away. He wasn't betting any credits on it.
Without saying anything, Blot shuffled over to the edge of the roof, and slowly unglued the rifle from his front to get into position. Hun-Grrr watched him crouch down, going through the motions, checking the safety lock, the ammo - everything he'd been taught and gone over a million times. He had to give Blot credit for learning how to handle the damn thing, he just had to be able to fire one properly.
“Twentieth floor,” Hun-Grrr said. “Fifth window in. Got it?”
Blot nodded, but he still hesitated, optics trailing over the building opposite of theirs. He took so long taking aim Hun-Grrr almost chastised him for it, but rushing the process would probably ruin it forever. Finally, he saw Blot's arm tighten as he pulled the trigger, shifting slightly from the recoil. Across the gap, Hun-Grrr barely saw where the bullet hit - definitely not a window, and definitely nowhere near the right floor. He still held out hope. Maybe Blot just couldn't count.
“You aim for the right window, Blot?” Hun-Grrr pressed, which made Blot pause.
“Twentieth floor, fifth window in,” Blot parroted back to him, not making eye contact.
“You hit the seventh floor balcony, somewhere between the third and fourth windows,” Hun-Grrr said. Blot continued to stare out at the skyline. “Where were you aiming?”
The silence was bit disconcerting, if only because he knew where Blot had been aiming wasn't either of the spots he'd described.
“I don't know,” Blot finally said, and Hun-Grrr was glad he wasn't looking at him. Blot seemed to exude defeat, but Hun-Grrr was just frustrated. What good was he outside of the arena fights without a gun? It was just going to make their jobs harder, and slow them down. Why didn't he -
“Freeze!” Hun-Grrr whirled around, too slow to pull out his weapon before there were two Elite Guard officers bearing down on them. Each of them had their rifles trained on himself and Blot. There was no way Blot's shot had been reported that quickly, so the fraggers must have followed them up here. Hun-Grrr tensed, ready to throw himself at the nearest officer. He could take a shot or two, so long as it didn't hit anything vital, and then he would give these mechs a taste of their own energon.
Hun-Grrr never got the chance to even take another step forward. Blot moved faster than he'd ever seen him move before, standing up and closing the distance between him and the officers in just one stride. The sniper rifle came with him, swinging in an arc that connected with the head of the closest officer. Hun-Grrr heard glass shatter, both from the rifle scope splintering and the mech's optic band cracking into a thousand pieces. Blot's rifle snapped in half from the impact, falling to the ground along with the Elite Guard officer.
The other mech, who had been targeting Hun-Grrr, swung around far too late to assist his partner. Blot grabbed the rifle by the muzzle, ripping it out of his hand and letting it sail over the edge of the roof. The officer back pedaled, but Blot already had a hold of him. The shattering glass had nothing on the sound of metal rending apart, the popping of hydraulics and the pull of snapping wires. The officer might have screamed, but Hun-Grrr didn't really hear it.
Hun-Grrr stared, rooted to the spot. Of course, he'd seen Blot do this sort of thing before in the arena fights. That had only been limbs or weapons, though. Not someone with military grade armor, and not without using the stronger secondary arms of his alt mode. Blot held onto the officer - both parts of him - for a moment, before dropping them to the ground.
“Sorry,” Blot said, and Hun-Grrr tore his optics away from the two halves of the officer. The other one hadn't moved, vital fluids leaking from his broken optics band. The gore didn't bother him - Blot's strength had just stunned him.
“What?” Hun-Grrr blinked.
“I broke the rifle.”
“Yeah,” said Hun-Grrr. Who the frag cared? It wasn't like it had cost him that much. “Well, you did a hell of a job on those two cops -”
“Three,” Blot interrupted. Hun-Grrr stared at him again, and Blot shuffled a bit awkwardly, before pointing to the officer he'd ripped in half. That... sort of made three.
“Right,” said Hun-Grrr. There was no point in fighting it at this point. He couldn't teach Blot to fire a gun, but he didn't need one, did he? “That's good, Blot. That's real good. Let's just get home.”
“But, what about...” Blot looked around, before spotting where he'd discarded the butt of his once-rifle. It was sitting in a pool of energon now.
“Forget it,” Hun-Grrr said. “Someone'll scavenge it for parts if these two aren't reported missing before then. You don't need it anyways.”
Not when you can rip an armored mech in two without straining yourself, he thought. That was raw power he could respect, and a power he could control. Blot was a weapon in and of himself, which no one else seemed capable of seeing. All they saw was someone who was rather dim, and smelled like the gutter. Fine by him - if they didn't want Blot, then Hun-Grrr didn't have any competition about where to unleash him.
“Let's just go,” Hun-Grrr said, stepping over the fallen mechs so they could head back down the stair well. He didn't really want to be here much longer.
Blot padded along behind him, following at his heels like he'd done the first time Hun-Grrr had met him. He couldn't fire a weapon, smelled foul, was dimmer than an abandoned energon mine and probably couldn't count past three, but none of that mattered to Hun-Grrr. He was loyal, and he was strong, and he was Hun-Grrr's to direct. Nothing wrong with that at all.