Mantis could only gaze up in wide-optic horror at the Decepticon that seemed to loom over her like the Grim Reaper waiting to take her spark away. Those red optics seemed to paralyze her to the spot, the Decepticon insignia and the Decepticon itself burning holes into her.
"What do we have here?" the Decepticon said, bending down to look at her. "A mini-ninja bot!" he said in mock surprise. Then he cocked his blaster up. "Pity you won't live to become an actual Ninjabot, oh well, least that's one less nosy prodder to be worried about." He said and the muzzle began to glow as the shot was prepared to be fired.
Yoketron had taught Mantis many things about combat- both physical and mental. One of the mental aspects is that when there's a sudden attack, one will receive a massive surge of adrenaline that the body won't be able to cope with. This triggers the fight, flight or freeze response.
More often than not, most fall into freeze due to shock. It's because the body and mind can't keep up with the sudden turn of events. That's why it's important to train your reflexes until it's ingrained in your processor down to your CPU and every circuit to not freeze.
Yoketron has drilled it in her to never freeze.
In less than a nanoclick her training kicked in just in the nick of time. She rolled in between the Decepticons pedes much to his surprise.
"Hey!" he called but she didn't even bother to look back, that would slow her down.
She instantly got up to her pedes and ran like her spark depended on it- which it did at the moment.
"GET DOWN!" she heard Yoketron order her and she instantly dropped down to the floor, servos over her helm.
Yoketron took three long strides for extra power and launched himself into a flying sidekick. The kick sent the Decepticon flying into another one of his comrades and knocked the wind out of both their vents, buying Yoketron and Mantis time.
"Are you alright?" Yoketron asked in concern as he kneeled beside Mantis.
"I-I'm fine." She stuttered, body trembling slightly in shock. "Sweet Solus Prime, we have to get help!" she said grasping onto Yoketron's shoulders.
"Help is already here." He said.
As if on cue, half a dozen kunai and shurikens respectively were thrown towards the Decepticons, 4 out of 6 of them hitting their mark. A small group of Cyber-ninjas seem to materialize out of the shadows. They dropped down from the rafters and landed around Yoketron and Mantis in a protective circle. Their pedes barely made a sound as they landed and they instinctively dropped into fighting stances, each drawing out their specialized weapon.
"Hold them off! Don't let them get near the chamber!" Yoketron ordered. Then he turned to Mantis and helped her up. "We need to move, quickly." He said.
"But what about the others?!" Mantis asked. "We can't just leave them!"
"We aren't leaving them. Now come on!" he said and gripping onto her wrist, they both sprinted off while the other Cyber-ninjas engaged the Decepticons in combat.
Yoketron ran so fast, Mantis was surprised her servo wasn't yanked off. They raced past through the corridors she remembered so clearly growing up in and soon he stopped in front of his room.
"Wait here." He said firmly before going in.
'I can't exactly run off now, can I?!' Mantis thought.
Barely two minutes passed but to Mantis it felt like megacycles (2.6 hours). Soon Yoketron emerged from the room with a rucksack. "Here, take this." He said handing it over to Mantis.
She nearly dropped it and hastily readjusted her grip on it before swinging it on. The rucksack seemed so big on her and the weight made her stumble a bit.
Yoketron's spark twisted. She was still so young, Primus she still had so much left to learn, so much left to teach her, so much left to live for.....
And all those were being rob away at this very moment.
Yoketron kneeled down like he has done so many times over the vorns as he'd watch her grow and grasped her shoulders- they felt so small and fragile under his grasp- firmly yet gently.
"Little jade......you have so....so much potential in you. You have the true makings of a Cyber-ninja and I couldn't be prouder to have you as a student and a daughter." His voice began to choke with emotion as he was forced to bid the femme he loved as his daughter farewell. "I want you to always remember that no matter what happens, no matter where you are in the universe, no matter how dire the situation is, I will always be there, watching over you....in here." He tapped her spark chamber. "If you truly fell alone, gaze at the stars for I am like the stars themselves, not always seen-"
"But always there." Mantis choked out as tears began to fall. "Why are you saying goodbye?! We're going to get out of here! We can fight them!" she said vehemently denying what was to come.
Yoketron just smiled at her. A smile filled with pride, fatherly love and......and sadness and resigned with an undertone of calm and peace.
"We both knew my time would come, it was inevitable." He said. "But know this. Fate....is like a double-edged blade. It rarely calls upon us at a moment of our choosing. But fate isn't set in stone. Fate is a choice. It can be what defines you or destroy you. That is why fate is not a path to follow blindly. It is always a matter of choice, and sometimes the spark speaks loudest...and wisest. Listen to your spark, because that is where your true fate lies."
Then he rose up to his pedes. "Come, little jade. There is one last thing I have to give you before your departure." He said.
Mantis hastily jogged after him, shouldering the rucksack on her. The rucksack was almost as big as her body on her, honestly. "Where are we going now?" she asked.
She got her answer as they entered an all too familiar room- her room. "Shifu, why are we here?" she asked.
He ignored her and leaped up into the rafters. Despite the situation, Mantis couldn't help but get frustrated. She didn't have time for games or riddles damn it! Then she noticed the datapad- the same one where she had drawn together with Prowl in and the one she had used to sketch so many other times on the table alongside the other datapads she had used over the vorns.
She scooped all those up and put them in the rucksack. Then her optics fell on a picture- the picture of her, Prowl and Yoketron having a picnic in the same meadow she went with Yoketron yesterday with the metal flower she had left beside it in her haste.
She took those two items which were her treasures and stored them in her subspace.
Then Yoketron dropped down from the rafters and landed down, knelt and held in front of him towards her......
Was a tray with two folded fans laid there on top of it.
"I believe you are now a Cyber-ninja worthy of a weapon." He said, presenting the tray to......to her?
Dumbfounded, her body seemed to go into autopilot as she grabbed the tray and looked down at the two weapons on the tray that were for her.
As she held onto that tray, she began to wonder if this was all some crazy dream, some bad recharge cycle. Not too long ago she had always dreamed of owning her own weapon.
Now a dream was coming true as a nightmare raged on.
She would gladly live the rest of her life as a Cyber-ninja with no weapon if it meant it would undo all of......this!
"Not like this....." she said as her body began to tremble like an earthquake. "Not like this!" her voice was rising as it all came crashing down on her.
She was leaving.
She was never coming back.
........she was leaving without Yoketron- her Shifu and sire.
"I can't do this!" she said and it all came pouring out along with her tears. "I can't leave you, Shifu! I can't run away like this! I can't just go out there on my own! I don't know what will happen to you, I don't know what will happen out there, I DON'T KNOW ANYTHING!
"I....I can't *hic* I-I can't leave you, I'm scared...." She whimpered and hiccuped like the child she truly was.
Then Yoketron tilted her chin up and gently used his thumb to wipe away the tears. "Little jade.....please, look at me. Could you do that for your tired old Shifu?" he asked gently.
Mantis sniffed and looked up into those kind benevolent optics she grew up knowing were always watching over her.
"I will always be there by your side. Always." He said the last part firmly. "I love you, I love you so much. And I'm so sorry my time had to come so soon." She wanted to scream at him to stop saying goodbye, why was he saying goodbye?! They were going to get out of this, both of them! They had to! "But promise me one more thing- promise me that no matter what happens, no matter what the world throws at you, no matter what others say, no matter what anyone or anything does to you, promise me, you will live on and never give up for the sake of others." He said.
"I.......I promise." She hiccuped. "I promise, Shifu." She repeated in a more firm voice, this time there was definitely a determined glint to her optics. Then she put the tray aside and charged forward to give him one last hug. "Tha-thank you *sniff* fo- for everything. I love you." She said, her servos wrapped around him.
Yoketron pressed a kiss to her helm like he had done so many times.....except this would be the last. "I love you too, my little jade." He said. "Now, I believe these are yours." He said once again offering her the tray with the weapon.
She took them and as much as she wanted to admire them, stored them in her subspace. She could admire them as much as she wanted to later.
"Now listen carefully. Once you get out of here. Run. Keep moving forward, just keep going and don't look back. Can you promise me you'll do that?" he asked.
Mantis nodded.
"Good. And.....and if my suspicions are correct, don't let anyone know who you are." Yoketron said.
"What? Why?" Mantis asked, bewildered by that suggestion. Don't let them know who she is? What was she supposed to do, take up a fake designation? A fake identity?
"For your own safety." He replied firmly, leaving no room for argument. Yoketron was no fool. For such a coordinated attack, at his own dojo no less not to mention how the Decepticons had had more than enough chances to snatch the protoforms but chose not to....
Someone definitely held a personal vendetta against him and he wasn't going to let the culprit get his daughter.
"Try to contact the other Cyber-ninjas of the Corps, they can be trusted. Whether or not you want to reveal who you are to them is up to you. Just be wary of who you trust. Understand?" he continued.
Mantis just nodded. "Ca-can I really do this?" she asked.
"Try." Yoketron said. "Always try. No matter how impossible the task seems, try. That way you can gain solace knowing you went down trying rather than living the rest of your life regretting that you should have tried. Sometimes, all it takes is one alone to make a difference. If you want...." Despite the dire situation they were in, he couldn't help but offer a rueful smile to her. "Think of it as an adventure."
Mantis has always wanted an adventure but she would gladly live the rest of her life in boredom if it could undo all of this.
"Take care, little jade. Live." He said and hugged her one more time.....
Then, still gripping onto her shoulder with one servo, he turned around, pressed a button he had hidden under a panel on the wall to reveal a hatch that opened to a secret passageway that led to the outside of the dojo.....
And threw Mantis in.
But not before he looked at her and gave her one last smile. "Goodbye, my daughter." He said as a tear slid down his cheek.
"Shifuuuuuuu!" Mantis cried, servo stretched out in a desperate bid to reach out to Yoketron. She caught one last glimpse of his kind, wise, patient and oh so loving and compassionate face....
Before the hatch closed.
Then she landed not so gracefully into a........cart? She whipped her helm around and found herself in a tunnel....a very dark tunnel that only told her it was a tunnel because of the echoes resounding.
"Wha-" she was promptly as the electrical mechanical sound of engines powering up filled the air.....
And she shot off down the tracks and deeper into the tunnel at rapid speeds, replacing her question with a scream of surprise.
'This would be pretty fun if it weren't for the fear of offlining!' she thought as she gripped onto the handrail in the cart for dear life. She was kinda tempted to throw her servos up but seriously, wrong time, wrong place and very wrong circumstances.
Finally the cart came to a jarring shuddering halt, the sudden brake almost made it flip over or in Mantis's case- she was nearly shot out of it like a catapult.
She just stayed in there for a while, still too shell shock to move. Then shakily, she got out of the cart. Her pedes touched solid steady ground and she stumbled a bit, having to grab onto the cart so she didn't trip.
Her knees were shaking.
Scratch that, her entire body was shaking. Every joint and circuit were shaking- practically quaking in fear.
She walked forward and bumped into a small table. Her servo ran over it and nearly knocked something over. She quickly caught it and realized that it was a lantern. 'At least I won't be walking into this blind.' Despite everything, her mouth twitched upwards slightly at her unintended pun.
But again, wrong time, wrong place and wrong circumstances.
She fumbled a bit but eventually managed to press the right button and turned it on. She held the lantern up and it cast an orange glow to her surroundings.
The floor, walls and ceilings of the cave were smoother than she thought. Throughout the stellar cycles of its neglect, it had evidently sprouted a few new stalagmites but overall, it was definitely reinforced yet natural at the same time.
'I lived in the dojo my whole life and only now I know about this?' she thought. She wished Yoketron could've at least given her a heads up.
Yoketron........
She nearly dropped the lantern, hop inside the cart and double back when his name came to her. But even so it's not like it would change anything.
The cart was too heavy for her flimsy barely fully developed protoform to push, she would be walking straight into the crossfire and.......
And she made a promise.
"Once you get out of here. Run. Keep moving forward, just keep going and don't look back."
So, Mantis took a deep vent, hoisted the rucksack up her shoulders- Primus it felt heavy and cumbersome on her small frame and picked up the lantern.
Then she turned around and saw nothing but the tunnel stretching out, a narrow void of darkness and emptiness and the unknown.
And so she began her journey and put one pede in front of the other, each one taking her further into the tunnel....
And further away from her home and everything she knew.
Mantis's p.o.v
They say the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. That there were no endings, only new beginnings.
That was the day I took my first step in that 'thousand mile journey'. It was also the ending of my childhood and the beginning of a new chapter in my life.