From Out Of The Vocals Of Sparklings.
Summary: Sixty years on from 2007, both sides have offspring although the war is ongoing. Not that that stops the Autobot and Decepticon Sparklings from wanting to interact…
Universe: Movieverse.
Rating: T for safety.
Disclaimer: Transformers isn't mine. It belongs to Hasbro and Dreamworks/Paramount.
From Out Of The Vocals Of Sparklings.
A/N: This is a more in-depth look nat the incident descrivbed in the 4th of 'Sam's Snippets'.
When Prowl found that the sparklings had once again all snuck out of Base, he huffed through his vents and reported to Optimus. He received instructions to go out and retrieve them, with Bluestreak and Ironhide to help. Prowl knew there were four or five places they could have gone, but by now, he knew of an easy way to locate them, and that was to look for increased air traffic.
It seemed that sparklings wanted to be near each other, whether they were Seekers or groundlings, for Prowl had learned that if he could see the Seeker sparklings, the grounder sparklings would usually be somewhere nearby.
Sure enough, when Prowl detected the little fliers and headed towards them, he found the Autobot sparklings mixing with the Decepticon sparklings. Most of them were pretending to fire at each other, and Prowl gave a grim smile when he realised they were playing at war.
"War is not a game. I have been sent to bring you home." he said, stepping out to where they could see him. He grabbed hold of his own sparkling, Flywheel, and beckoned over Gilt,(Ironhide and Chromia's femme,) Hip-hop (Jazz's mech) Illusion (Mirage's mech) and the various other Autobot sparklings: Ironhide and Bluestreak began picking them up.
"But it's not just war." said Flywheel, motioning behind him. Prowl looked and stared. There was Runway, Starscream's mech, locked in an embrace with Terra Prima, Optimus' femme, dermaplating to dermaplating. "They're calling a ceasefire and sealing the deal in the usual manner."
Prowl snorted, part irritated and part amused.
"If only it were that easy, but I don't see Starscream as the 'Kiss-and-make-up' sort of mech. War and politics are so much more complicated, too complicated for you younglings to understand. What you have been told before, however, still stands and is simple enough to understand." He stepped over, pulling the two apart. They looked up in surprise, guilt ,and disappointment. He picked up Terra Prima and grabbed Flywheel's hand again with his other. He looked at both of them, then at the other assembled Autobot sparklings.
"No mixing with the Decepticon's younglings. If their parents found you, they could hurt you or use you against us." As the sound of jet engines was heard, at first far off and getting steadily closer, Ironhide powered up his cannons as Bluestreak gathered the other Autobot sparklings behind him.
"Speak of the Unmaker." Prowl muttered as the three members of the Command Trine hove into view.
The other two stayed hovering, one in jet form, the other unfolding into robot form, while Starscream, also assuming robot form, landed gracefully and lightly on his thrusters. He beckoned imperiously with one hand.
"Come here you lot, you're almost more trouble than you are worth. You know you are not permitted to associate with that rabble. You fliers are banned from the sky for two days once we get home, the groundling youngsters must stay within the Base confines for the same amount of time."
The fliers and ground-based Decepticon younglings all set up a disappointed clamour, some of the fliers actually wailing with distress. Starscream ignored it, signalling his wingbrothers to land: they did so, the one in jet form first transforming mid-air, and began gathering up the ground-form younglings.
"Those of you who can fly, gather behind me, Thundercracker and Skywarp will bring up the rear, and stop shouting, you knew you were doing wrong, so you must take your punishment."
"Starscream, it seems we are finally in accord about one thing." Prowl stated. "In future, kindly keep your younglings away from ours!"
"You're a fine one to talk, Autobot. If you kept control of your younglings, we wouldn't have this problem!"
"If we controlled our younglings? It's your flying types that fly up and signal their presence that serves to draw our younglings away!" Prowl stated evenly, trying to control his temper. "Keep your younglings under control in whatever way you see fit, but most of all, keep them away from our younglings." he said. Starscream scowled.
"I don't take orders from you Autobot, and certainly do not appreciate being told how to bring up our sparklings! You deal with yours, we'll deal with ours, and if we all do our jobs properly, this should no longer be an issue."
Prowl chose to ignore the Seeker's goad, instead stating, "Now, Autobots, transform and roll out, Ironhide and Bluestreak, you bring up the rear, younglings, you stay behind me and in front of the other two at all times. And oh, yes, you are not to be allowed out of the Base unsupervised for the next two days: someone will sit out to supervise you to stop you sneaking off!"
"So much for freedom," one of the sparklings - Prowl didn't see which one - muttered darkly.
"Freedom with younglings is granted only when the younglings in question can show the ability to use it maturely and sensibly. Abuse of the privileges results in their temporary suspension." Prowl stated.
Putting Terra Prima down and letting go of Flywheel's hand, he transformed and moved to the head of the convoy, as Thundercracker and Skywarp, their arms full of the grounder younglings, took off.
The Autobots moved out, and Starscream, waving to the mini-wing of fliers, took off, and both groups headed for their respective bases.
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Decepticon Base, one day later.
"No, Runway and Firefly, you cannot go outside, I said two days without the sky and I meant it!" snapped Starscream. "You only want to go outside to see if you can signal to theirs and sneak off again, well you heard that probe-up-his-aft Prowl, they're stuck under supervision too!"
"It's so not fair!" Runway cried and his sister was quick to agree. "Just because you're at war, we can't see our friends. You adults ruin everything!"
"No Runway, it's because you sneak off away from our sight, where anything could happen that we have to do this." Starscream said.
"So, if we invited our friends round to where you could see us, or to a place you knew as safe, you'd let us play with them?" Runway asked hopefully.
"No! You are not to associate with them!" Starscream said. Firefly nudged her brother.
"Don't bother, like all adults he's just making excuses. It is what we said, because of their war, we can't have the others as friends!"
Starscream looked at his unhappy, sullen offspring, and reviewed the conversation they had just had in his head, and came to a startling realisation: his younglings were right. The difficulties arose not due to problems between the children, but between the relevant Creators. If, as they had suggested, the younglings were supervised, what was the problem? Why force the misery of their conflict on their younglings?
Making a snap decision, he sent several comms: one was to Soundwave, to watch the younglings in his absence. The other was a summons to his trine-mates and to the members of both the Conehead Trine and the Rainmaker Trine.
He headed for the Base entrance, awaited the arrival of the others. Once they were all there, they all converted into jet form, and took off.
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It was Bumblebee who was on watch over the younglings who were playing outside the Autobot base, so only Bumblebee observed what happened that youngsters seemed subdued to him, their play muted and at times stilted, there was none of the exuberance Bumblebee associated with his own younglinghood. bumblebee felt a little sorry for them, they just wanted to play, but the war just brought unhappiness and division into their lives.
It was a well known but irritating fact that sometimes some of the Decepticon fliers - usually the Command Trine - took to flying over the Autobot base, but generally did no more than make a few rude signs as they flew past, so Bumblebee had no reason to believe that day would be any different when he heard the whine of approaching plane engines.
All the same, he blew his horn to get the youngling's attentions, beckoning for them to come over by him. He looked up, and saw that there seemed to be three lines of fliers. Three trine's worth, that was unusual.
He watched them warily, they had not tried to cover up their approach and as he watched, one of them winked out. That one, of course, had to be Skywarp. He barely had time to wonder what he was doing when with a pop of displaced air, the Seeker appeared above him, grabbed him by his shoulders, and disappeared again.
Straight after him came Starscream and Thundercracker, who took advantage of the youngling's shocked immobility to swoop down and scoop up those nearest the gate.
The others panicked and scattered, but the other two ranks of fliers were prepared for this, swooping down to grab or otherwise divert the fleeing younglings. Skywarp managed to intercept two who almost made it back into the base, popping in just before they got there, scooping them up, and popping out with them.
The Autobots who had been alerted by Bumblebee's panicked comm from where Skywarp had dumped him two kilometers away got out in time to see the Seekers disappearing into the distance, a few fading cries the only other clue to where the younglings were.