Fang Wolfsbane

‘So you’re Eijiro Kirishima, eh?’

‘Yup. The one and only.’

‘And you’re going to stop the L.O.V. all on your own?’

‘Yup.’

‘Wow, you’re so strong. Please don’t hurt me.’

‘Hey, as long as you cooperate, things won’t get too hard on ya.’

Yeah, if it were only that easy.

Eijiro knew arriving at the League of Villains’ main base wouldn’t be just a simple walk in the park, but he had not been expecting the one that came to pick him up to be Dabi.

The moment he stepped into the waiting area of the train station, the fire quirk user eyed him with nothing short of malice. If he hadn’t been told about Eijiro’s arrival, he might have just burst out of controlled and killed everyone around them with no remorse.

Luckily whoever had arranged for the mission to be done in the first place had made sure that Tomura Shigaraki at least knew to keep Dabi from killing him on the spot. For now anyway.

The way those blue eyes narrowed on him, Eijiro felt like he was looking right into Katsuki’s glare whenever one of them dared to try and keep him up past his bedtime. The last time that had happened at the dorms, poor Izuku nearly broke an arm – again.

Fighting back the urge to harden his body in response to a possible attack, Eijiro started to lift his hand for a handshake instead before basic training kicked in thanks to Mister Aizawa.

‘Never shake hands with the enemy unless you have to. If you do, do it slowly. They’ll use any excuse they can as a reason to attack.’

Dabi especially. He and Tetsutetsu knew that from experience.

Seeming almost hesitant, Dabi made his way over, hands casually in his pockets. He probably held a weapon in his hand but considering how skilled he was with using his quirk, Eijiro doubted he needed it. Still, he couldn’t help but glance. Better safe than sorry.

Taking a second to remember what he had learned about infiltration missions, Eijiro steeled himself by straightening his back and looking the taller male in the eye. He could do this, no problem.

“Yo,” he said, remembering the way he had tried talking when he, Tenya, Momo, Shoto and Izuku had tried rescuing Katsuki on their own during their first year at U.A. thanks to the League of Villains kidnapping him for their own purposes.

Those eyes stared into his own, the very opposite of each other, to the point where Eijiro feared his mission had failed before it even begun.

He gulped.

“You’re the kid?”

For some reason Eijiro couldn’t stop before his mouth ran off with him. He frowned.

“Kid? I’m nineteen man. I’m not a kid anymore.”

Dabi seemed less than convinced before he simply turned and stared walking. “Come on. I don’t have all day.”

Blinking, it took Eijiro a couple of seconds to realise what was happening before he jogged after the taller man, bag in hand. Was it possible that Dabi didn’t recognise him? Or did he simply not care?

Looking at his clothing choice, an oversized raincoat that covered just about every part of him, save for his eyes, Eijiro was yanked back to bitter reality. Just as he was afraid of being recognised by the L.O.V., so was Dabi towards anyone associated with the Hero Commission.

Why else would he try to hide?

Two noble demons at his doorstep seeking to join him and his cause.

Dante would have laughed if the very thought weren’t so ridiculous. Or so familiar.

Back when Patty still stayed in the building, there had been another set of twins that had thought to manipulate him, probably Vergil as well.

Baul and Modeus. Students of his father, the great Sparda.

Unlike earlier, the laugh that wanted to build in his throat faded. Back when he first met Modeus, he thought that the demon might have been capable of being a protector of human kind. Baul had been a completely different story.

The moment the struggle with the two had ended, Dante could have sworn he had seen something like regret flash in Modeus’s eyes.

For the first time in years, he had genuinely felt true pain towards half of his bloodline. Granted being half human and half demon had left both him and Vergil torn between their heritages, it had also made it easier to live up to his father’s legacy.

Protector of humankind.

Vergil had laughed at him for sinking so low as to try and help those that he himself wished to rule over. For someone that had wished to rule over the humans, Vergil had done one hell of a job when it came to a certain woman that had managed to temporarily ease the need inside of him.

A religious woman at that, hence the reason why Nero was a living copy of his father. No, not a copy. Physically, maybe, but they both knew that the young half breed was capable of so much more than both his father and uncle.

Ever since taking Nero under his wing, there had been times he regretted it, but the one thing he regretted more than anything was not knowing about him before he reached maturity, or as mature as Nero could get.

Thinking on it, Dante knew all too well that if Vergil had known about his son, there was a good chance that he would have tried to corrupt his son into the same, twisted beliefs he had. As much as he hated to admit it, Dante was glad that Kyrie’s family had taken Nero in when they did.

Even though he didn’t approve of the church’s beliefs, he knew that they had a lot to do with moulding Nero into the man he was today. Granted he still had his easy to anger moments, but with his fiancé at his side, Nero had grown into a man even Dante admired. Not that he’d ever admit it. Not to him at least.

“Tsu. Tsu. Tsu!”

Tsuyu Asui blinked out of her trance the moment her mother tapped her on the shoulder. Looking to the woman beside her, Tsuyu gave a sheepish smile, her long green hair falling over her face as she rubbed the back of her head in a show of embarrassment over having been caught daydreaming – again.

“Sorry mom, ribbit.”

Beru Asui let out a sigh as she rested her hands on her hips and arched a brow at her daughter. “You’ve been thinking about that again, haven’t you?”

Her mother didn’t need to so much as wait on an answer. Ever since Tsuyu had seen the first explorer since she started working in her parents’ tavern, The Lucky Hop, she had been fantasising about going out one day and joining their ranks.

Usually she could catch an interesting story from one or two of them. Her parents complained that she annoyed the customers with her constant questioning, but most of the adventurers didn’t seem to mind telling of their exploits.

In fact, many welcomed the chance to simply lean back and tell of what had happened to them on their journey to the tavern.

Granted, there were a fair share of would be adventurers that told a tale that was a bit too tall for her liking. Usually she could weed them out pretty quickly the moment a mischievous gleam caught their eyes.

She left those tables for her parents to deal with. They weren’t all that interested in the customers’ tales unless they brought a shiny coin in exchange.

It wasn’t that they didn’t support their eldest in her dreams of becoming an adventurer herself, but while she lived under their roof, they had made her promise not to simply grab her things and run off into the woods like one of the maidens in her story books.

In all honesty, she loved her family and enjoyed her time in the tavern, but there was only so many jugs of ale and loaves of bread that a girl could carry after someone else that lived her dream on a daily basis. She wanted that life for herself, and frankly, she was getting tired of waiting on it.

“Oh Tsu, what are we going to do with you?” her mom asked, a look of defeat on her face, accompanied by the remnants of an ale stain on her skirt from when one of the customers accidentally bumped into her while she was on her way to put down an order.

“I’m going to assume that I’m not going to get my tip from table seven anymore, ribbit?”

Her mother only shook her head as she held up a tray with a loaf of bread and some fresh milk for the stableboy that worked just outside the tavern, near the local inn. “I might reconsider. Now go and take Koji’s food to him. The poor boy must be starving by now.”

“Ribbit,” Tsuyu hummed as she took the tray from her mother and greeted a couple of the regular customers on her way out into the bright afternoon sun.

“Primitive,” Ratchet scoffed as he glared at the robotic recreations Sari’s father had helped contribute to in terms of constructing the Jurassic animatronics that told of a world none of the humans currently roaming the planet’s surface would be able to tell whether they were accurate or not.

For all they knew, the Tyrannosaurus Rex in front of the old medic was a bright pink with feathers plastered all over them enough to make a tropicana dancer jealous. Tyla smiled to herself. She always enjoyed the thought of maybe one day saving up enough money to travel the world and see one of those dances at some or other fancy club while getting drunk off her ass.

Too bad she wasn’t born into the world of the rich and the famous.

But then again, how many humans could say that they were friends with robotic beings from out of space? Maybe her life wasn’t as dull as she wished to claim.

“Hey, what’s this one called?” Highdrive asked as he crouched in front of one of the dinosaur displays, one with a triangular head and three horns on its head.

“That’s a Triceratops,” Sari said, pointing towards the robot’s head. “It’s called that because of its three horns on its head that kind of make a triangle, see?”

“Oh!” Bumblebee grinned in excitement as he pointed up to one sitting on the top of a tree. “Then that has to be a zero-tops, right?”

In that moment Tyla knew Sari to be the better person between the two of them. At least she managed to keep herself from snorting at the yellow bot’s misunderstanding. “No, that’s a Pterodactyl.”

“Oh,” Bumblebee repeated, a sheepish smile on his face as Bulkhead leaned over his shoulder to get a better look at the bird-like dinosaur.

“There really weren’t any humans around when these were?” Bulkhead asked, tilting his helm ever so slightly, causing the animatronic to copy his action. The bigger robot blinked and took a step back as if suddenly on alert.

“Nope, not one,” Sari confirmed as she looked to Tyla as if seeking backup for her statement, “unless you count cavemen I guess?”

Tyla shrugged. As much as she liked the look of dinosaurs, she herself was very limited in terms of what was around during their time. She only knew a handful of names and that the big bang wiped out nearly every version of dinosaur to ever exist. Save for alligators, doves and maybe cockroaches. Though she was willing to bet that she was more or less wrong on that assumption.

With his arms crossed over his chest, Optimus stared at the legendary king of dinosaurs as if the animatronic might snap to life and start attacking him in some show of dominance. Not that she blamed him. Sumdac Industries had a habit of providing excellence when it came to robots. When they weren’t rampaging through the city of course.

“Something the matter big guy?” Tyla asked as she sidled up to the big red mech, looking up to him.

“Something feels… off about them.”

Tyla blinked. Paranoia about animatronics from the leader of the Autobots? Now that wasn’t something you heard – or saw – every day. “What do you mean?”

Optimus shrugged as he turned to move on to the next display when a loud primal-like roar caught their attention. The king of dinosaurs wasn’t done being gawked at.

“You… what?”

Momo flashed him that charming smile she always wore on her lips. “Exactly what I said! I talked to Principal Nezu and Mister Aizawa, and it’s still possible for you to re-join U.A.!”

If it had been a couple of months ago, he would have jumped at her words and celebrated to the point where the café’s other patrons would have given him an odd look. Instead, he only slumped back in his seat.

Getting into U.A. had been hard enough with the physical test that came along with their recommendations, so much so that he had nearly tripped and fallen face first on the ice trail Shoto had left behind.

It had taken him about a week after the official first day of school to realise it had been Shoto’s quirk that had nearly caused him to fail that day. Of course Momo had been set up to compete with other females, so he had no idea of knowing whether she met any of their – or his previous – classmates during the test.

When he didn’t return her excitement, her face fell, disappointment setting in soon after. “You’re happy about it… aren’t you?”

As much as he wanted to, he couldn’t bring himself to lie to her. “Of course I’m not, Momo. I practically got kicked out. There’s no way I can show my face around school ever again.”

Her face fell even more.

For a moment he considered simply getting up and walking off to let her know exactly how he felt about her offer, which in retrospect, had probably been done in good conscience.

All he had to do was say thanks but no thanks, get up and leave like the conversation never happened in the first place. After all, there were plenty of other high schools around the city.

It would be so easy. Just one, single step.

The self-shaming look on her face was enough to make him feel like complete and utter shit for not even hearing her out fully.

He sighed.

“What do I need to do?”

Watching buildings and open fields flashing by each window, Eijiro stared at the mismatch landscape each time the scenery changed.

Each moment that passed by, he felt the knot in his stomach grow. In less than an hour the train would stop and he’d meet up with someone from the League to take him to their hideout, probably not their real one, but a hideout nonetheless.

It would take some time but if he could somehow manage to convince the League that he had somehow turned his back on the hero society, then maybe, just maybe he could make his way up high enough on the command chain that he could get into contact with the leader himself, Tomura Shigaraki.

Eijiro had never personally seen the leader, but from what Katsuki had told him on more than one occasion, the leader was nothing if not creepy. The knot in his stomach twinged at the memory.

Class One-A and B had been on a training camp when a handful of members from the League of Villains attacked the impressionable young students. Their goal had been to take Katsuki, something they had succeeded in.

The heroes and their homeroom teacher at the time, Mister Aizawa, had tried to convince them to leave matters to them. The majority of their class had agreed to step down. All of them, except for five of them. Him, Izuku Midoriya, Tenya Iida, Shoto Todoroki and Momo Yaoyorozu.

Originally none of them had mentioned anything to the adults and would have failed if it wasn’t for Katsuki’s temper and a few other unpredictable events that had led to Katsuki grabbing onto his hand that night as they escaped from the League.

Although he’d never admit it, Katsuki had nightmares for days on end about the League. It was only because Eijiro had somehow managed to wear him down that Katsuki eventually admitted that fact to him, and him alone.

Thinking on it, Eijiro couldn’t help but feel worse about the fact that he had refused to tell Katsuki the full reason for his sudden disappearance. He had wanted to. Hell, he’d wanted to set Katsuki down with Tamaki, Fatgum, Tetsutetsu, Mina, Denki, Hanta, even Hitoshi and Mister Aizawa and told them exactly what the Commission expected from him, but he couldn’t. He just couldn’t put them at risk like that.

The closer the train got to where it was meant to stop, Eijiro felt a weight settle in his chest until that dreaded announcement echoed over the train’s speaker.“We have arrived.”

“So wait, you’re telling me that we have to go out there and deal with an Autobot problem, one that we didn’t even cause in the first place?” Skywarp asked, a half-drunk cube of energon in front of him, generously donated from their last raid on a solar-run powerplant.

Starscream had to admit, out of all the energy sources they’ve raided since arriving on Earth, solar-generated energon was the easiest going down, to put it in a crass manner, but he didn’t care. Ever since receiving a report of both the advantage and disadvantages of their new artificial energon sources, Starscream had personally ordered his brothers to seek solar-energy energon out above all the other options.

Because of its scarcity, no bot could consume enough energon to gain weight, but as much of an inconvenience it was, it was a necessary sacrifice he and all the other natural fliers of the Decepticons had to take. The slimmer their frames, the faster they travelled through the air.

This fact often left them with grumbling tanks demanding for faster refuelling, but it was, as the humans put it, their cross to bear. Perhaps one day, if they succeeded in conquering this planet and Cybertron, then he and his brothers could relax a little and consume all the energon they needed.

It was because of thoughts like these that Starscream often found himself glaring at the sight of Astrotrain and Blitzwing whenever they entered the rec-room and drank the more filling options. Both of them were fliers, just like the seekers, however, they were triplechangers, which not only meant that they needed nearly double the rationed amounts of energon, but that they also needed the ones that would last longer in their systems like the oil-based cubes. Unlike the seekers slimmer builds, the triplechangers needed their bulk more than their speed.

As a flier, he found it hypocritical, but as a former scientist, he couldn’t deny the facts that were right in front of him. There were more times often than not that he gloated about the excellence of his processor’s high intelligence, although there were also times where even he hated its aptitude for logic.

“To put it simply, yes,” Starscream muttered over the edge of his own cube, frowning as he swirled the soft pink liquid around, knowing that he would be lucky if it lasted him two or three Earth days at the most.

“You have got to be kidding me,” Skywarp huffed, frowning to their younger brother, Thundercracker, who, as usual, sat quietly in the corner, thinking over his brother and trine leader’s words through.

Out of all their brothers, Thundercracker had never been much of a talker, but what he was, was a skilled mind of his own. He wouldn’t admit it to any bot, but when it came down to militia strategy, Thundercracker was quite adept at the fine art of it. Starscream had even caught him reading a digitised version of The Art of War by a human named Sun Tzu, a man that had supposedly been as good a strategist as his brother at one point.

Seeking for any sort of advice from a human seemed like a redundant process in his optics, but what he also knew from stellar cycles of fighting against Autobots was that no strategy was worth ignoring, so he had simply let it slide. Out of all of the Decepticons, especially those on board the Nemesis, Thundercracker was the least likely to try and take control over them, and that was all the reassurance he needed.

“Who is this mysterious bot anyway?” Skywarp demanded, leaning forward on the table, nearly tilting it to the side, frowning at the action. Starscream mirrored his expression. Some bot had to be in charge of maintenance but was probably busy somewhere with something else that had nothing to do with their job assignment, or they were possibly recharging in the janitor’s closet. He was willing to bet it was the latter, because despite all the mechs on board the ship, none had seemed all that eager to test their boundaries with each other lately.

Thinking on the subject, Starscream felt his CPU heat up. He couldn’t even remember the last time he had a good frag. If he truly had to remember the last, proper time, was with a mech in a similar field of study as him, Sky Fire.

The last time the two mechs had seen each other was on this very mudball of a planet before they had gotten separated only to reunite millennia later. Their reunion had been fast and heated, and at the time, Starscream had thought that maybe, perhaps if things had been different, that he would have convinced the colossal bot to settle down with him, but then, as usual, the Autobots chose to interfere. Sky Fire had felt more of a sense of duty towards the creatures of this planet than the inhabitants of their own. Their official separation had not been nearly as perfect as their time spent together.

“If I knew, then I wouldn’t be telling the two of you about this, would I?” Starscream asked, his irritation growing over the stupid question. Skywarp only held up a purple servo as if to defend himself. Thundercracker knew better than to copy Skywarp’s question.

“The best thing to do for now is go on as normal, but when you’re out there, I want you two to keep an extra sharp optic out for this bot. We don’t know what his plans are, but if it starts interfering with our mission, then we’ve got nothing but a troublemaker to deal with. If you see him, capture, and return him back here. Megatron wants Soundwave to interrogate him the moment he gets here.”

“Slag, don’t go making it too easy for us now,” Skywarp muttered, earning a jab in the side from Thundercracker’s elbow.

“Just don’t mess this up. There’s something about this bot that has both Megatron and Optimus on edge. Whatever you do, do not underestimate him,” Starscream warned, the only acknowledgement he received were nods from both of them. Understanding nods.

“Well good morning to you too.”

Ares frowned to himself as he looked up at his sister from his spot in what he could only somewhat classify as a living room. Lack of other presences not included.

Moving his spoon around in his chocolate-flavoured cereal, Ares turned his attention on the monkey-themed human children’s breakfast. “Morning.”

She returned his frown back to him, her hands resting on her hips. “What has you in such a sour mood?”

He didn’t answer her. Frankly he didn’t quite know himself. All he knew was that since the previous night he had been angry at his sister and so far had no justifiable reason other than he didn’t like the sight of her enjoying time with someone other than him.

Not that he could tell her that. The first thing she’d do would be to criticize his behaviour as childish.

How she could call him that, he didn’t know. They were in a realm neither of them had ever been in before, had no friends and no idea what they were really doing in said realm except defying Mundus’s orders to kill his nephews.

Ever since last night he had barely even spoken to her. Hell, he had even planned on staying quiet around her until at least a full twenty-four hours had passed by. She had broken through that wall in ten hours. Ten hours, thirty-eight minutes and approximately twenty seconds to be precise. Not that he was counting.

Not out loud anyway.

“Nothing,” he mumbled, spoon in mouth.

With a huff, his sister rolled her red eyes before she made her way over to the counter and grabbed the cereal box for herself on her way to the makeshift kitchen that only held a small fridge, a microwave, a single counter, sink and kettle.

He didn’t know much about how humans lived, but even in the underworld their kitchens were more… decorated. Then again, the building wasn’t exactly meant to be a home so much as a business. It was almost a wonder that there was a bathroom upstairs to begin with.

“Hey, could you two cut it out? If you keep this up, I’ll end up freezing.” The twins paused to look at their target’s nephew as he made his way into the room, rubbing his arms for dramatic effect. “What’s up? You two have a fight or something?”

He could practically see Aspasia resisting the urge to roll her eyes at him. “Trust me human, if we were fighting, this building would be your tomb already.”

Nero gave her an unimpressed frown before he turned his attention to Ares as if he’d be able to give him a better answer than the female demon had. Ares only raised his bowl as explanation.

“Breakfast?”

This time Nero was the one that rolled his eyes as he followed Aspasia. “Sure. Why not?”

Tenya took a deep breath as he stood out on the balcony, observing the night sky on the horizon. He had never been one for staying up past his assigned bedtime but when it came to high-end parties like the one he was currently at, he didn’t have much of a choice.

“Sir Iida?”

Tenya nearly froze at the sound of his name on the princess’s lips. Spinning around so fast that he nearly toppled over the edge of the railing, Tenya’s hand flew to his chest as he bowed at the waist in a clear sign of submission to the young girl – no, woman – in front of him.

Granted she wasn’t any older than he was, but she did possess a higher rank, one that was impossible for him to obtain unless he married into it. And even then he wouldn’t possess the same rank whatsoever.

“Your Highness,” he said with as much respect as he could convey his voice to portray. It wasn’t that he didn’t have any respect for her. Respect for those of higher rank had been drilled into him from a young age, but so had the need to question everything around him.

For a moment the princess looked stunned before a soft smile crossed her lips as she lifted the skirt of her dress ever so slightly so that she could approach him. “Please, call me Momo.”

For a minute he stood completely frozen in place. Who was he to call the princess by her first name? Much less at her request.

He shook his head. “I cannot do that Your Highness. It would be nothing if disrespectful of your rank, my lady.”

The smile faded from her face temporarily before it spread across her lips once more, this time not seeming as intimate as it had been a second ago. “O-Oh, I see. Thank you for your consideration.”

“It is nothing if not my pleasure, Your Highness!”

She took a step back, reminding Tenya that others didn’t respond as well to his direct behaviour like his family did. He quickly lowered his bow as instinct took over.

“My apologies for frightening you, Your Highness!”

“N-No, it’s perfectly alright,” she said with that nervous smile on her face as she stood beside him. “You’re quite a direct person, aren’t you Sir Iida?”

He took that as his cue, standing up to his full height. He towered over her by only a couple of millimetres, not much but enough that she had to tilt her eyes up ever so slightly to look him in the eye. He was by no means a short boy, but even at his age he towered over male children his age, so to find a female taller than most boys he met before, he was sufficiently surprised to say the least.

“Please, call me Tenya, Princess,. My brother is Sir Iida.”

She tilted her head ever so slightly. “I thought you aspired to be a knight as well.”

The statement caught him by surprise, but he quickly regained his composure as a smile of his own crossed his lips. “I do, but I still have a long way to go.”

This time her smile brightened ever so slightly into an actual smile as she turned her gaze to where he had been staring at earlier. “Then I suppose we both have a long way to go, Sir Iida.”

Tenya parted his lips to remind her of his name, but before he could stop himself, he smiled in return, his gaze refocusing on the same scenery as well.

“It seems like it, Princess.”

Those that have read the previous Q and A post for Transformers Generation One: A Seeker’s Triangle would already know the idea behind this. But to clarify for those who haven’t seen it yet. Every fifty chapters of each fanfic I post, I will be opening an intermission where I’d like you, the reader, to pose any and all questions you might have about the particular fanfic, which I will then do my best to answer twenty-five chapters after said intermission.

I would appreciate your participation in this. Of course you’re not required to, but if you choose to participate, it would be greatly appreciated. I look forward to hearing from you!

He hated waking up, more than anything.

It was tedious. Tiring. And most of all, annoying.

Especially when someone phoned him awake.

Groaning to himself, Dabi reached for his phone, wincing when the sharp light hit his eyes, showing a number that half annoyed him when he saw it sometimes. Reluctantly, he swiped his thumb over the green answer option.

“What do you want Tomura?”

“Well good morning to you too Mister Sunshine,” Tomura’s scratchy voice said from the other side of the phone.

Dabi groaned in warning to let the other know that he definitely wasn’t in the mood to fool around this early in the morning. Not with a raging hangover and most definitely not with the nausea rolling through his stomach from not eating within the last twenty four hours.

“Don’t test me Tomura.”

He could practically feel his valiant leader rolling his eyes at him. “I just got a call a minute ago. We have a new recruit coming and need someone to go pick him up.”

An urge to hang up slipped clean over him. But he didn’t. “Why me?”

“Because you’re the only one I can trust to do it. Now will you or won’t you?”

If it had been anyone else that demanded that of him, he would have told them to go screw themselves and would have gone back to sleep. He groaned to himself as he rubbed the bridge of his nose as he looked to the cracked ceiling above. “Who am I picking up?”

“I don’t like this one bit Prime. We should’ve just hung up, let ‘em know we ain’t gonna take their crud lyin’ down,” Iron Hide made his thoughts clear, his arms crossed over his chassis with a huff.

“We don’t know that for certain Iron Hide,” Optimus tried reassuring his third, although just like his name suggested, Iron Hide’s hide was as thick as iron, in more places than one it seemed.

“We don’t need to. You saw it for yerself, that was a ’con. There’s no doubt about it,” Iron Hide persisted.

“I hate to say it O.P., but he’s got a point,” Jazz chipped in, rubbing the back of his helm. Personally Optimus felt the strong urge to agree with them, but as the leader, he had to at least try and remain objective, no matter the circumstances.

“Whoever the bot is, there’s no guarantee that he’s a Decepticon. You saw it for yourself, even Megatron seemed surprised about the whole thing.”

“That doesn’t mean slag and you know it. It wouldn’t be the first time one of his lil’ minions turned tail on him and did somethin’ without him knowin’ ‘bout it.”

“That may be true, but then he would’ve at least told us who he was.”

“Unless he’s a secret weapon. It wouldn’t be the first time he had one of those either.”

Optimus sighed, letting air circulate through his vents to try and cool his internal systems. No matter how he looked at it, Iron Hide had a solid point. None of their assumptions against his brother could be denied.

The easiest method would have been Megatron telling them who the mech was so that they could at least ask amongst their own ranks if any bot knew who the mysterious bot was. Not all of them knew about their encounter with the strange mech, only that there had been an incident regarding their energon supply.

He felt bad enough as it was to be keeping something this important from them, but if Mirage and Hound couldn’t deliver results on their own, then much more serious methods would need to be put into place.

Placing Iron Hide in charge of seeing to a security update around the base had settled the other mech long enough for the call to happen, but even with their best on the job, Optimus couldn’t help but feel a sense of unease, and that was what scared him.

She couldn’t believe that she was in the human realm, much less standing outside of the famous Devil May Cry building, talking to the human female, Nico.

She had originally gone out to just get some fresh air, too used to her family’s manor that the much smaller building was nearly suffocating, never mind the small room she had to share with her brother. Not that she minded sharing with him but sleeping in the small area he had claimed as his own couldn’t be comfortable in the least.

Nico had spotted her and invited herself over for a conversation. At first Aspasia found the human’s presence nothing less than annoying, but gradually she started to relax around her. Before she knew it, the two of them were talking about potential weapons Nico could make for both her and her brother.

For a human, she was well informed.

Sometime during their conversation, Aspasia felt something odd at the back of her head, almost as if she were being watched. Frowning to herself, Aspasia looked up to the nearest window. All she saw was a human-like silhouette and the next second it was out of view.

She didn’t need to be a demon to know who exactly it had been.

Staring at the princess, Tenya patiently, obediently waited his turn as the princess’s parents to introduce her to him, and his brother to do the same. The moment they stopped in front of him, Tenya found his spine straightening to the point that he nearly felt it snap.

A soft sound caught his attention as the princess gave him a soft, playful smile. Against his better judgement, he found himself returning her smile. It was only after his brother lightly bumped his arm that he remembered how someone other than another royal looking a royal in the eye could be seen as disrespectful. He nearly launched himself forward with his bow.

“Your Highness! I am Tenya Iida, the second son of the Iida family. It is a pleasure to meet you!”

Looking at the floor, he caught sight of the tip of a red shoe scuttling back in surprise. For a second he feared that he might have scared her. It wasn’t until a light chuckle brought his attention back up to the king and queen that stood on either side of their daughter.

The king looked to Tenya’s brother, giving him an affectionate clap on the shoulder. “A fine younger brother you have there, Sir Tensei.”

Tensei bowed slightly at the waist, enough so that it was a clear show of respect, but not so low as to make himself seem unworthy of their presence. “Thank you, my king.”

With an approving nod, the king stood aside as he placed a gentle hand on his daughter’s back, urging her forward. “Momo, introduce yourself.”

The tall girl in front of Tenya slid her perfectly manicured hands over her dress, lightly pinched the fabric and lifted it ever so slightly off the floor as she went down into a curtsey. “I am Princess Momo Yaoyorozu. It is pleasant to meet you as well, Sir Iida.”

A jolt of happiness shot through Tenya so fast that he could barely keep the grin off his face. Even with his family’s last name, he was too young to apply for a full knighthood, so of course he lacked the title she had called him by, but it made him feel happy nonetheless.

Her father chuckled good naturedly. “Sir Iida, hm? What do you say Tensei? Do we have another Iida knight in our presence?”

Tenya’s eyes widened as he looked to his brother to gauge his reaction. Usually one knight in a family was already a prestige, but whenever another knight came from the same parents in that family, it was seen as an insult for there to be more than one. For a heartbeat he feared his brother’s scorn, even mockery. Instead his brother flashed him a gentle smile.

“I believe so, my king.”