You were right, both the Milk and Coffee Village were very grateful to Dark Cacao cookie for vanquishing the dragons, he didn’t stop there either, with your help, you both stopped an invasion from the Licorice Sea in the Milk Village.
“That 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.”
Sweetie barked as if agreeing.
“Oh yes Sweetie, you were such a good boy, who’s a scary, flesh-eating puppy, you are, yes you are.”
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.
“You guys should build a big wall.”
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.
“AH!! I’m 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 I’m always so busy.”
“What wall?” Asked Almond Milk as both siblings synchronized their confused head tilt.
“Whaddya mean what wall, it’s right over there.” You pointed to a very small pile of stone that seemed to be falling apart.
“That’s not a wall, it’s a pile of old rocks.”
“I like it, it’s like a metaphor for our broken society.”
“Or perhaps a cry for help, are you clinically depressed Y/n Cookie?”
Your eyes widened, where the heck were these kids parents. “Alright enough, I’m perfectly fine, go back to your mother.”
The children ran off giggling and you turned back to Dark Cacao, his expression blank and unchanged.
“Oh, uh, those are the twins, Oat Milk and Almond Milk, they’re creepy, but they don’t bite, most of the time.”
“I see, they seemed, unsettling considering their village was under attack not too long ago.”
“Oh yeah, honestly I think it’s 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.”
“Hm, you mean start it.”
“I did my best and I don’t want to hear another word unless it’s encouraging.”
“I encourage you to face the fact that what you have there is very much not a wall.”
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 he’s 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.
“I’ll get us hot jelly stew, you’ll love it, my own secret recipe.”
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 doesn’t 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 let’s go of the stick, causing the warrior man to fall backwards as the wolf made his way towards the pot of stew.
“Oh my goodness, Sweetie sit! Are you okay?” 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. You’re both broken away from your thoughts as you hear a clang of metal, Sweetie was trying to get into the pot.
“Sweetie!! No! Bad boy!!” You walk over and open the pot, shoving away Sweeties face with your elbow as you served the stew in two bowls.
“Okay now the pot is yours.”
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.
“You’re a good cook.”
“Aw, thanks, it’s just a little something I picked up with the help of the people in the villages.”
“Well I’ll be, if it isn’t Mister serious face.” 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?
“Hollyberry, what brings you here my friend?”
“Oh, I was just doing some exploring, my kingdom is just a ways down south of here, you should visit, bring your pretty girlfriend too.”
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.
“I’m not- we’re not- together!” You chuckled nervously.
“Aw that’s too bad, you’re absolutely gorgeous.”
“Aaaaawww thank you, you’re 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.”
“Oooooohhh, I’m Hollyberry, a friend of the grump you got there, is this your kingdom?”
“Oh no no no, I could never be a royal, I’m more knight material at best, heh.”
“Really? Well now I’ve gotta see for myself, let’s spar, if you win, I’ll call in some construction to help you get this wall done in no time flat, but if you lose, well I’ll still call in construction, but then you both gotta come back to my kingdom so we can get absolutely wasted on redberry juice.”
“Absolutely not.” Dark Cacao turns away from Hollyberry.
“Well good thing I’m not asking you, I’m asking her.”
You nod your head, seems like a win-win, plus you’re almost always open to new things.
“Sure, I will admit though, maybe I’ll let you win just to see what redberry juice tastes like.”
“Oh my goodness, your tongue is untouched by the goodness that is redberry juice!! You better give me your best cuz now I’m really gonna kick your butt and drag you to my kingdom!”
“For your own sake win Y/n.” 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 Cacao’s mark, you both were going to have an exciting battle.
Tw for Medical Malpractice at the end that’s 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 didn’t 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 Ricochet’s 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 he’d needed to be helped when blind. Unfortunately, the glitch he’d 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 he’d 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 didn’t stop Jazz! Not like he’d 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, and—
Jazz gasped softly, “Praxian!”
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 who’d 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 Jazz’s 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 ‘Hexie who’d 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 he’d saved back in Iacon during the emergency transfer, though it appeared he had gotten a visor to allow him to see.
“Sorry about that,” the blue, white, and obnoxiously orange mech that seemed to be Jazz’s superior officer said, taking Jazz out of Prowl’s arms and hauling him unceremoniously over one shoulder, “that happens.”
The Chief sighed, “get him to Medic Pharma so he can make sure Jazz didn’t fry parts of his processor again.”
“This is.. normal?” The Iaconian asked. Dartox, if he remembered correctly.
“Unfortunately,” the Chief said as the blue mech took Jazz to the Medic, “he’s got a medical condition. He’s a good officer, even though this happens.”
Hm. Prowl thought, I’d 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.
