Grandparent's Day
Author's Foreword:
Yeah … as you may have figured it out, it does not exactly follow the continuity of G1 all that close … Ratchet and Wheeljack are alive (although Wheeljack's death is arguable because you see him later in Victory and nobody ever referred to that) … but hey, come on, loosen up! Besides! They are alive in our hearts and that's what counts! And Optimus Prime is still alive and Hot Rod is still Hot Rod … hate that guy …
" What, screws in your head not tight enough?"
"GAH, you know I can't tighten them up! You wanna fight, slaghole? I will turn you into afterglow, Afterburner! Where the slag are my guns?"
"That made no sense you idiot! JEE, I wonder out of what parts of Unicron's brain you were made out of, Strafe!"
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The exceptionally loud yelling attracted every Autobot and human attention on the base. Even Lazerbeak, casually spying on Decepticon's sworn enemies, crawled through the vents to see what the commotion was all about.
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"Were they always this loud?" Marissa Fairborn asked Perceptor, "Back when I was showing them around on Earth they didn't make that much noise!"
"Oh dear, I certainly hope that they will not begin yet another mortifying rampage! I cannot afford to get any more of my equipment damaged! It will generate an unpleasant effect on my research capabilities!"
"Yet another rampage? What do you …"
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"DO NOT MAKE ME GET GRIMLOCK HERE!" Scattershot yelled, so loud that the walls shook a bit.
"STOP SCREAMING! YOU WILL MAKE LIGHTSPEED CRY AGAIN!"
"G-g-guys stop fighting! It is not …"
"Oh for the love of Primus! Ratchet and Wheeljack are obviously …"
"Where the hell are my guns?"
"I believe Ratchet and Wheeljack are indeed our …"
"OH FOR SLAG'S SAKE! FOR THE SLAGGING LAST SLAGGING TIME, WHERE THE SLAG ARE MY SLAGGING GUNS?"
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"Someone call Slag?" The dinobot, confused as to what was going on, slowly walked down the hall with Swoop.
"Believe me; we are as confused as you are." Marissa turned to the dinobot.
"Hm, upon analyzing the gamma waves emitted by their brains, built-in measuring apparatus of coolant pumps and hydraulics, the strength of their voices and the fact that somebody hid away Strafe's guns I dare postulate a theory that they are engaged in some activity that can potentially lead to an excessive release of electrons into their emotional cortexes thus making them act violent or experiencing any other emotion …," Perceptor blurted out in one breath.
"In other words Perceptor, they are fighting, again!" said Ultra Magnus as he entered the hall from his quarters.
"Me, Slag, think they talk about Mama and Papa."
"They are? Hm, Marissa, back when you were showing them on Earth, what have you …" Ultra Magnus wanted to ask a question but was loudly interrupted.
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"I WILL BASH YOUR FACE INTO YOUR EXHAUST PIPE!" Scattershot's voice again roared through the whole base.
"WE DON'T EVEN HAVE ONE YOU HALF SCREWED BOLT!"
"There they are! WOOHOO! Wait ... where is the ammo?"
"I can't work with all that noise! I am almost done wrapping it!"
"We haven't decided anything yet! Why are you wrapping them in the first place?"
"I want it to be perfect! It has to be P-E-R-F-E-C-T!"
'WHERE IS THE AMMO?"
"Nosecone, for the last time if you do not hurry the slag up …" Slag yet again threw a confused look at the door of the Technobot quarters "I WILL mess up your desk!"
"NO NOT MY DESK! It took me 2 whole cycles to perfect it! How dare you?"
"Guys, let's just calm down!"
"Just shut up before you get Afterburner raging again, flyboy."
"HEY! That was uncalled for!"
"O PISH."
"Screw you guys! I am gonna get my own desk, with hookers and blackjack. In fact, forget the hookers."
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"Um, what? Flyboy? Lightspeed transforms into a car!" Marissa was confused.
"Swoop say Lightspeed want to fly too. Grimlock say Lightspeed want to fly."
"Hm, perhaps it would be wise to submit these readings for further analysis. I am hoping it would give us a better idea into combiner psychology."
"With their consent," Ultra Magnus said with notable irritation at the scientist.
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"GRRRRR! Nosecone, are you done yet?"
"Almost. Scattershot and Afterburner, both of you PLEASE make sure we have EVERYTHING. Strafe, go locate Ratchet and Wheeljack. Lightspeed, go with Strafe and make sure he actually does it. By the way, you fed all your ammunition to a sharkticon, remember? Some sort of experiment?"
"Oh! Let's have an ammo eating contest!"
"I propose another experiment! Let's experiment how far I can shove my foot up your …," Afterburner angrily said.
"No!" The four other Technobots said in unison.
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"Hide!" Perceptor loudly whispered and everyone followed his advice.
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When Strafe and Lightspeed exited the quarters and proceeded to walk down the hall in search for Ratchet and Wheeljack, the five overheard part of their conversation.
"You know Strafe, I am confident that if Grimlock is our …"
"Ya, I know, I think so too. Too bad it takes Nosecone so slagaliciously long to do or decide anything! It is obvious his parents are our …"
"Come on! He is a perfectionist! I want this to be done just the right way too you know."
"Yes, but the problem is that we have been at it ever since we left Earth! We even combined into freaking Computron to work out the details! Oh! We MUST thank Marissa for showing us around!"
"Oh definitely! You think Ultra Magnus will allow us to go there again?"
"If only Perceptor would be kind enough to stop collecting new samples of some random scrap from space, than yes."
"You know it wasn't really his fault that you and Afterburner crashed through the lab wall during yet another one of your rampages, as humorous as they maybe."
"Yeah, hehe, if I wanted to I would have shot his eyes from 2 kilometers away!"
"In any case, you think they are in the lab?"
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As the two Technobots exited the hallway into another, the five came out of their hiding place, cramped together in the janitor's closet.
"All right, what are they up to this time? Any guesses? And what are you two doing here away from the rest of the dinobots?," with a hint of irritation, Ultra Magnus asked the others.
"Me, Slag and him, Swoop, here to thank them, Technobots, again for good gift for Grimlock."
"Me, Sludge want to thank Technobots too."
Turning their heads towards the other end of the hall, everyone saw Snarl and Sludge walking towards them.
"Me, Snarl, say we bring them cesium baloney."
"Right. So, Father's Day celebration?" Ultra Magnus was quite surprised to hear about this.
"Yes, me, Swoop, say Technobots give big new sword to Grimlock and new gun. Leader happy, we happy. We thank Technobots for making leader happy."
"Wait a minute, the Technobots made Grimlock a new sword? Can they make more?"
"Sword too big for not leader."
"That sword was H-U-M-O-N-G-O-U-S! I do wonder how they were able to shape the metals in such rather brutal looking patterns, considering that most of that equipment was destroyed creating marginal constructive capabalities in this vicinity."
"Hold on, I don't get it. Mama? Papa? What?" Marissa was longing for some sort of an explanation.
"Well, you see my dear, it all happened …"
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Wheeljack and Ratchet were somewhat irritated that the Technobots "accidentally" destroyed half of the lab, rendering them unable to work. What angered the two even more was that the trip did not end up as uneventful as Sky Lynx said it would. The giant Autobot kept bragging of his technological superiority so much that he did not notice a meteor shower, two supernovae, before finally crashing on some random planet with people enslaved by everybody's favorite villains in the universe: the Decepticons. All that was over with now -thankfully- and the two Autobots were able to grab some energon cubes, sitting down at the only free table in the mess hall.
"I miss the good old days, ya know? Decepticons would randomly do whatever Megatron said and then we would come and kick their afts to Cybertronium One Age," Wheeljack said, trying to put himself in a better mood.
"I know what you mean. We didn't have those damned Quintessons to fight or Unicron's head resurrecting Decepticons to worry about. And now Hot Rod has been watching Jackass and tried a few things from there. Good thing Ultra Magnus wasn't around," Ratchet joined his old friend in the discussion.
"Heh, well, I always found Earth interesting. Heh, remember when we built the dinobots?"
"Oh scrap, we always had to fix the whole base each time Grimlock got hungry."
"Heh, the Mother's and Father's days were fun."
"Oh do NOT even remind me."
"You are blushing! How cute!"
"Me, Grimlock love Mama and Papa! Me Grimlock have surprise for you!" Suddenly Grimlock walked in on the conversation.
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Peeking into the mess hall, Strafe and Lightspeed narrowed their optics to better see whether their target mechs were there. Upon seeing them sit down at a table, Strafe nearly exploded with excitement but was held back in time by Lightspeed. They could not allow Wheeljack and Ratchet see them until "it" was ready.
"Nosecone, Afterburner, Scattershot, we found them! They are in the mess hall! Hurry up! They just sat down but they may leave soon! Oh my god! I can't believe this is happening! This is so awesome!" Strafe was jumping up and down in place, throwing every passerby into mild terror.
"Yes, Nosecone finally wrapped the slagging things, took his sweet time too!" Scattershot answered over the Earth walkie-talkies.
"Eheheheheheheheheheheheeh!"
"Guys! Please hurry up! Strafe is just a few clicks away from shooting things again. Would be a lot easier to escape if I could fly."
Everyone was scared when Strafe became excited, so they were scared of him pretty much all the time. As much as a speck of dust flying through the air could get the Technobot all pumped up; the more "jumpy" and happy Strafe became, the closer he was to shooting the ever-sparking scrap out of whatever got into his optics range and saying the darnest things ever. It got only worse if Afterburner was around, which was pretty much all the time. A day doesn't pass that he would not begin raging for no apparent reason, which also got Strafe excited, in turn making Afterburner get even angrier; all ending up with Scattershot having to quite literally beat the sense into their heads using his "berserk" methods.
"Don't worry, we are on our way." The other Technobots began their way to the mess hall.
"Oh hey look! There is Grimlock!," Strafe pointed out. "O-M-G this is gonna be so awesome! Come on, COME ON! OMIGOD where are they?" Strafe was getting dangerously jumpy.
"Are they still there? We didn't miss them did we?," Scattershot asked as soon as they entered the hall with the other two bots.
"Yes, they are still there, Grimlock came too!"
"All right," Scattershot took in a few deep breaths and then said as they entered the mess hall: "Technobots, let's show them what we got!"
As they walked towards the table that Ratchet, Wheeljack and Grimlock were at, everybody began turning to see what was about to happen. Ultra Magnus with Marissa Fariborn and Perceptor along with the rest of the dinobots sat not too far away.
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"Wh-Wha? Grimlock!" Ratchet did not see that coming.
"Hey buddy! How ya doin? Nice to see ya kid! You been eating energon on a regular basis?" The last word Wheeljack was barely able to say, without having his entire face light up laughing.
"Me, Grimlock love to see Mama and Papa again! Grimlock have surprise for you!"
"Primus! What is it this time?" Ratchet was quickly losing all hope to ever get out of this without being smothered in love and embarrassment.
"Oh! They're here! Technobots! Mama! Papa! Me, Grimlock say you grandparents!"
Upon hearing these words, Jazz and Prowl fell down on the floor, gasping for air from laughter. Sideswipe, Sunstreaker, Hound, Mirage and Arcee took a few moments to process the information and began laughing, so hard that they began leaking coolant. Ultra Magnus face-palmed and slowly began breaking down laughing. The rest exploded with yells, screams and laughter too.
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"All right, just like we practiced," Scattershot whispered to the Technobots after having Strafe and Afterburner help him silence the crowd by throwing a few acid bombs in the most populated areas.
"I am Scattershot, leader of the Technobots."
"Lightspeed."
"Strafe, nice to meet ya!"
"Nosecone."
"Afterburner."
"Hi grandma and grandpa!" The Technobots said in sync.
"On Earth, it is Grandparent's day! So, we bring you gifts!" Scattershot continued with the little ceremony.
Ratchet's mouth kept dropping even lower with each word said and Wheeljack was lighting up with all the colors of the rainbow.
"This is for you Grandma!" Strafe and Lightspeed presented a pretty huge basket wrapped in white and red ribbons.
Ratchet would have kept sitting there with the stupefied look on his face if Wheeljack did not nudge him under the table.
"But, but, but," Ratchet could not fight it anymore and with eyes tearing up with coolant he said, "Thank you so much. You shouldn't have. This is more than I deserve. I love it! Thank you!"
"EEEE! OPENITOPENITOPENITOPENIT!"
Ratchet began to carefully unwrap the beautiful red and white ribbon on the basket to find a little artificial tree with figurines of Ratchet and Wheeljack at the roots, the dinobots figurines in the middle; from Grimlock, five branches led to the five Technobots and Computron figurines. Oblivious to the awing in the crowd, Ratchet took out the rest of the things from the basket: a giant mug saying "Memaw" and a custom made Transformer sized bag saying "Grandma is my name, spoiling is my game".
"And this is for you grandpa!" Afterburner and Nosecone presented a big box wrapped in green and white to Wheeljack.
"Do proceed to open it if you wish."
"Heh, you guys! That is very nice of you! Hopefully I'll make something for ya that won't blow up in my face or try to eat me at some point." With the last few words said, Wheeljack looked lovingly at Grimlock who was emitting some random noises that sounded like someone threw a bucket of rusty nails into a rusty engine. He was probably giggling.
Wheeljack began unwrapping the Technobots' gift, too, as careful as he could. First thing he took out was a Transformer sized T-shirt saying "This is what the universe's greatest grandpa looks like". Then, an orb flew out of the box and focused its camera on Wheeljack.
"We heard that you are really great on the road and that there is no stunt that you can't pull off so we thought that you can record them to show everyone how awesome you can be! We programmed it to listen to your voice commands or you can control it with this remote."
Wheeljack, too, tearing up and rendered speechless, reached into the box for the last item - an album that contained hundreds of pictures of the Dinobots and the Tehcnobots during some of the most important moments in their lives with short descriptions of what is happening.
"We were sincerely hoping that both of you would be kind enough to help us fill it up! There is space for hundreds more moments to remember!"
Ratchet and Wheeljack both got up from their seats and hugged their grandkids.
"There will be many more to take after we fill it up, eh Ratchet?"
"Let's get a picture now! With our entire family!"
"We, dinobots like!"
"WOOHOO PICTURE TIME! EVERYONE GET IN HERE!"
The camera flew around, adjusting the view to take the best picture it could of the twelve bots, tied with the unbreakable bond known as "family".
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P.S. Yes, Lazerbeak ended up on one of the pictures, they noticed it years later. Poor Ratchet …
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P.P.S. Yes, Strafe and Afterburner got into a fight again, except they had a lot more participants this time, effectively annihilating whatever was left of the lab, the gym and the washroom facilities. It was one hell of a clean up after one hell of a party … Primus would be proud.
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P.P.P.S. Computron got drunk …
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P.P.P.P.S. Ratchet and Wheeljack with help of Optimus Prime, Ultra Magnus and Alpha Trion selected numerous dates branding them with names of members of the family (brother/sister day, grandkids/kids day, etc etc) which were quite a success, bringing the Autobot communities all over the universe closer together.
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"Before we forget," Scattershot said, "There is someone who is eager to see you two! Technobots! Form Computron!"
It was a fun day for Ratchet and Wheeljack.
Author's Notes
This is my first fanfic, i gotta thank Crescent-moon-demon for making me do this because this was just an amazing experience, life changing even. There will be more, lots more, in fact there is a whole series coming up ... hope you enjoy that too.
And yes, thank you Crescent-moon-demon for reminding me. This fic was inspired by the one where Grimlock and the dinobots have given gifts for Wheeljack and Ratchet for Father's and Mother's days, I am sorry i do not remember who it was and once i find it i will definitely credit the person properly.
I tried separating the parts from one another to make it easier for people to know who is talking and when but it didn't work so for now I am resorting to putting dots and stuff on a single line. I am hoping I will be able to find a MUCH better way in the future. Any suggestions are welcome.