You were right, both the Milk and Coffee Village were very grateful to Dark Cacao cookie for vanquishing the dragons, he didnât stop there either, with your help, you both stopped an invasion from the Licorice Sea in the Milk Village.
âThat village must be struggling if they keep coming back over here to beat this nearly dead horse of a town, ugh, we just barely began recovering too.â
Sweetie barked as if agreeing.
âOh yes Sweetie, you were such a good boy, whoâs a scary, flesh-eating puppy, you are, yes you are.â
Dark Cacao Cookie seemed to stare into the distance, you noticed this and were about to ask what was on his mind before being interrupted by the high pitched voice of a child.
âYou guys should build a big wall.â
This voice belonged to a very tiny Oat Milk Cookie, accompanied by his twin brother Almond Milk Cookie. As usual, they startled you, having had a talent to seemingly appear out of thin air.
âAH!! Iâm gonna put a bell on both of you! Anyways, I already started on a wall, just never got around to working on it that often because Iâm always so busy.â
âWhat wall?â Asked Almond Milk as both siblings synchronized their confused head tilt.
âWhaddya mean what wall, itâs right over there.â You pointed to a very small pile of stone that seemed to be falling apart.
âThatâs not a wall, itâs a pile of old rocks.â
âI like it, itâs like a metaphor for our broken society.â
âOr perhaps a cry for help, are you clinically depressed Y/n Cookie?â
Your eyes widened, where the heck were these kids parents. âAlright enough, Iâm perfectly fine, go back to your mother.â
The children ran off giggling and you turned back to Dark Cacao, his expression blank and unchanged.
âOh, uh, those are the twins, Oat Milk and Almond Milk, theyâre creepy, but they donât bite, most of the time.â
âI see, they seemed, unsettling considering their village was under attack not too long ago.â
âOh yeah, honestly I think itâs just the cyanide they were baked with, if anything, invaders should be more afraid of them. But besides that, how about we continue that wall.â
âHm, you mean start it.â
âI did my best and I donât want to hear another word unless itâs encouraging.â
âI encourage you to face the fact that what you have there is very much not a wall.â
You see a small smile form on his face, was he holding back a laugh, oh you were gonna show him alright. You crouch and pick up some soft icing snow, packing it into a ball before throwing it at him, hitting his sword out of his hand. He keeps his small smile and picks up his sword, the two of you beginning your work, there were people occasionally offering their help as well as they were passing by, which was very kind. Slowly the wall was coming along very well, the construction was even bringing people together, you soon decide it time for a good break, a good portion of the wall was done. As you turn to Dark Cacao, you notice heâs already distracted himself in a game of fetch with Sweetie, the giant cremewolf wagging its tail as it returned with the thrown stick. You laughed as you approached them.
âIâll get us hot jelly stew, youâll love it, my own secret recipe.â
Dark Cacao nodded before attempting to wrestle back the stick from Sweetie, looks like he was now up for a game of tug of war. It doesnât take you long to return with a large piping hot pot of stew, you set the pot down in the snow, causing it to melt its surroundings. Sweetie, having still been in a game of tug of war with Dark Cacao, suddenly letâs go of the stick, causing the warrior man to fall backwards as the wolf made his way towards the pot of stew.
âOh my goodness, Sweetie sit! Are you okay?â You laugh as you walk over to Dark Cacao and help him up.
He nods as he takes your hand, you pick him up, helping him steady himself on the snowy ground, man, his purple eyes really were absolutely gorgeous, you wish you had eyes like that. Youâre both broken away from your thoughts as you hear a clang of metal, Sweetie was trying to get into the pot.
âSweetie!! No! Bad boy!!â You walk over and open the pot, shoving away Sweeties face with your elbow as you served the stew in two bowls.
âOkay now the pot is yours.â
Sweetie wasted no time shoving his entire muzzle into the pot of, now-warm, stew while you walked over and offered a bowl to Dark Cacao which he took. After one bite, while hardly expressed on his face, he was absolutely in love with the food, the flavor, the texture, everything was perfect.
âYouâre a good cook.â
âAw, thanks, itâs just a little something I picked up with the help of the people in the villages.â
âWell Iâll be, if it isnât Mister serious face.â You turn and see a large and muscular woman with two pink buns in her hair, she looked so pretty and it sounded like she knew Dark Cacao, friends perhaps?
âHollyberry, what brings you here my friend?â
âOh, I was just doing some exploring, my kingdom is just a ways down south of here, you should visit, bring your pretty girlfriend too.â
You choked on your stew and Dark Cacao, though his facial expression was unchanged, the color of his cheeks radiated a deep red as he blushed, eventually you managed to dislodge the jelly from your windpipe after a few coughs.
âIâm not- weâre not- together!â You chuckled nervously.
âAw thatâs too bad, youâre absolutely gorgeous.â
âAaaaawww thank you, youâre gorgeous too, the names Y/n by the way and that giant hog snout-deep in a pot over there is my cremewolf Sweetie, I would also like to say that I personally, would still love to swing by your kingdom once the wall is done.â
âOooooohhh, Iâm Hollyberry, a friend of the grump you got there, is this your kingdom?â
âOh no no no, I could never be a royal, Iâm more knight material at best, heh.â
âReally? Well now Iâve gotta see for myself, letâs spar, if you win, Iâll call in some construction to help you get this wall done in no time flat, but if you lose, well Iâll still call in construction, but then you both gotta come back to my kingdom so we can get absolutely wasted on redberry juice.â
âAbsolutely not.â Dark Cacao turns away from Hollyberry.
âWell good thing Iâm not asking you, Iâm asking her.â
You nod your head, seems like a win-win, plus youâre almost always open to new things.
âSure, I will admit though, maybe Iâll let you win just to see what redberry juice tastes like.â
âOh my goodness, your tongue is untouched by the goodness that is redberry juice!! You better give me your best cuz now Iâm really gonna kick your butt and drag you to my kingdom!â
âFor your own sake win Y/n.â Dark Cacao said.
You went and grabbed your bow and arrows, this was gonna be too easy, all you had to do was keep your distance. You stand a good distance away from Hollyberry and, on Dark Cacaoâs mark, you both were going to have an exciting battle.
Tw for Medical Malpractice at the end thatâs gonna show more in part 9.
It had been some vorns since Jazz had been kidnapped- enough that he had not only gotten his final upgrades, but had gotten a procedure to bypass his optics for visual feed. He still had them, of course. He didnât want them removed just because he now had a specialized visor to see the world. And what a beautiful day it was to wake up from the surgery and see Ricochetâs face for the first time since he was a youngling. It made them both cry, but neither would admit that.
Now? Now Jazz was an enforcer, helping others the way he had always wanted to, the way heâd needed to be helped when blind. Unfortunately, the glitch heâd inherited from Punch had only gotten worse after the surgery. While it had previously only been triggered at extremely high levels of any emotion, now it triggered not only then, but whenever he got too excited. He had learned that rather quickly when heâd been told the medics were discharging him and he got so excited to get out and see Polyhex that it had triggered the crash. A couple rounds of testing and even more crashes later, he had been released and now had ways to manage his glitch.
But that didnât stop Jazz! Not like heâd let it, anyways. He was one of the best on the force, and everyone knew it, though he heard whispers about his glitch constantly.
That was enough for reminiscing. Jazz stood with his superior officer, the Chief, and two other officers to wait for the new transfers from all over Cybertron- part of a program the Senate put out to show the enforcers of different city states how others worked, in order to promote cooperation between city states.
The transport pulled up, then opened their doors, letting out an Iaconian, a Kaonite, a crystal city mech, a very carsick Vosian, andâ
Jazz gasped softly, âPraxian!â
He could barely wait for his superior to finally allow him to drop the formalities and welcome the transfers with the sunny happiness that Jazz had very quickly become known for in the precinct, and bounded over to them, greeting each enthusiastically and getting varied reactions, from disgust from the Vosian to just as thrilled from the Iaconian, his excitement growing as he bounded over to the Praxian, excited to meet one of the frametype whoâd helped save his life vorns ago, even if he never got to know who exactly had saved him.
Only too late did he notice the growing crash, until he stumbled and went down hard, not even registering hitting the ground before he was out.
Both the Chief and Jazzâs superior officer lunged for the collapsing mech, but the Praxian was closest, catching the Polyhexian before he could hit the ground and then standing there awkwardly.
Prowl stared down at the âHexie whoâd just crashed and fell into his arms. He looked familiar enough that he dug up all memory files with Polyhexians until he realized this was the blind mech heâd saved back in Iacon during the emergency transfer, though it appeared he had gotten a visor to allow him to see.
âSorry about that,â the blue, white, and obnoxiously orange mech that seemed to be Jazzâs superior officer said, taking Jazz out of Prowlâs arms and hauling him unceremoniously over one shoulder, âthat happens.â
The Chief sighed, âget him to Medic Pharma so he can make sure Jazz didnât fry parts of his processor again.â
âThis is.. normal?â The Iaconian asked. Dartox, if he remembered correctly.
âUnfortunately,â the Chief said as the blue mech took Jazz to the Medic, âheâs got a medical condition. Heâs a good officer, even though this happens.â
Hm. Prowl thought, Iâd better keep an eye on him, then. Just in case.
Jazz woke up in the Medi-center, though feeling oddly detached from his emotions. Then the logic hit, along with his memories and the readout from the crash and what the medic had done while accessing his symptoms. He frowned softly, unable to worry about what he was reading, but displeased with it. Logic dictated he should still have access, but there was a medic lock on it keeping him out.
